So, the second trailer for Solo dropped on Sunday and here it is!
Y’know, compared to the other contributors here at the Shattered Lens, I’m not a huge Star Wars fan but I really have to say that this trailer looks really, really, really, really cool. It has a totally different feel to it than any of the other Star Wars trailers that I’ve seen. It has a sort of Ocean’s 11/Snowpiercer/Baby Driver-in-space kind of feel to it.
There’s a great scene that occurs about an hour into HBO’s latest original film, Paterno.
Joe Paterno (Al Pacino), the legendary and aging Penn State football coach, has been accused of knowing and failing to report that one of his former assistant coaches, Jerry Sandusky (Jim Johnson), was a pedophile. With Paterno and his family plotting out strategy behind closed doors, a group of Penn State students gather outside of the Paterno home. Instead of being angry that children were molested at their college, they’ve come to show their support for Paterno.
“JOE PATERNO!” they chant.
Scott Paterno (Greg Grunberg) hears the chants. Scott is a lawyer and appears to be the only member of the Paterno family to truly understand the seriousness of the accusations. Scott steps outside.
“JOE PATERNO!” the crowd continues to chant.
Scott thanks them for their support but then says that they also need to show the same support to all of Sandusky’s victims…
“JOE PATERNO!” the chant continues.
Struggling to be heard, Scott again asks them to remember that the children molested by Sandusky are the ones who need the most support…
Suddenly, the chant changes. “SCOTT PATERNO!” the crowd starts to chant. It’s not because they’ve heard anything that Scott’s said. Instead, it’s because Scott’s a Paterno and, in the eyes of the crowd, that makes him royalty. As the crowd continues to chant his name, Scott gives up and reenters the house.
Paterno could have used more scenes like that, scenes that explicitly showed the danger of blind hero worship as opposed to just telling us about it. For the most part, Paterno feels like a well-written Wikipedia article. You can’t deny the skill with which the film was made but, at the same time, it’s difficult not to get frustrated by Paterno‘s refusal to really dig too far underneath the surface of the story.
Some of the problem is with the film’s structure. The film primarily takes place over the final six days of Paterno’s career. Paterno spends the majority of the film locked away in his house, passive aggressively avoiding the question of what he knew and when he knew it. His wife (Kathy Baker) and his other son, buffoonish Jay (Larry Mitchell), make excuses for him while Scott tries to get everyone to understand that the accusations aren’t just going to go away. This is the part of the Paterno story that, in most films, would be summed up by an end credits title card.
As a result, Paterno never really deals with why Joe Paterno not only didn’t report Sandusky but also apparently protected him and that, to be honest, is the most important and troubling part of the story. Since Sandusky is only briefly seen, we never get any insight into his relationship with Paterno and we never understand why Paterno would go to bat for an assistant who he, at one point, refers to as being “a pain in the ass.” Was Paterno truly clueless about what was happening or did he just think he could sweep it under the rug and nobody would say anything because he was Joe Paterno? Were Paterno’s actions the result of willful blindness or hubris? It’s not so much a problem that the film leaves certain questions unanswered as much as it’s a problem that the film itself doesn’t seem to be all that concerned with the answers.
When the film isn’t concentrating on the Paternos, it’s concentrating on the reporter, Sara Ganim (Riley Keough), who originally broke the story. However, these scenes are never quite as compelling as the film seems to think they are. Riley Keough, who was so great in American Honey, seems miscast here. For the most part. Sara seems to be there so that she can witness the Penn State students rioting and chanting, “Fuck the Media” after Paterno loses his job.
The best thing that Paterno has going for it is the lead performance of Al Pacino. Pacino plays Paterno as a man who is very comfortable with the routine that he’s built up for himself. His life revolves around Penn State, his team, and finally his own legend. When the Sandusky story first breaks, Paterno can’t understand why he even has to be concerned about it. He’s got a game against Nebraska coming up! Awkward even around his adoring family, Paterno only seems to be truly comfortable when he’s coaching. Pacino plays Paterno as a fragile and sickly man, a once ferocious lion brought down by a combination of cancer and scandal. When we first see him, Paterno is coaching his team to a record-setting victory and he seems like a larger-than-life figure. By the end of the movie, Paterno seems much smaller, a confused man who still can’t seem to bring himself to deal with why everyone is getting so upset. It’s a great performance in an uneven film.
Sometimes, I come across things on my DVR that I not only have no memory of recording but which I also cannot, for the life of me, figure out why I decided to record it in the first place. I recorded the 1977 film One On One off of TCM on January 17th and I’m not really sure why.
It’s not that One On One is a terrible movie or anything like that. It’s an extremely predictable film and it’s got one of those soundtracks that is extremely 70s but not cool disco-style 70s. No, instead this film is full of the type of soft rock music that your grandmother listens to while driving to the local CVS Pharmacy. (The majority of the songs are performed by a group called Seals and Croft and are painfully undanceable.) But, even with that in mind, it’s not really a bad movie. If I’m confused about why I recorded it, it’s because One on One is a movie about basketball, which is a sport that holds absolutely zero interest for me.
(My main issue with basketball has to do with the sound of all of those squeaky shoes on the court.)
But, before going any further, let’s watch a commercial:
One on One tells the story of Henry Steele (Robby Benson), a high school basketball star. Henry is from Colorado, which this film seems to suggest is the equivalent of coming from Siberia. When Moreland Smith (G.D. Spradlin). the renowned coach of Western University’s basketball team, offers Henry a full athletic scholarship, Henry negotiates a pretty good deal for himself. Not only is his education going to be paid for but he also wins a guarantee that he’ll never be cut from the team and that his father will get a car. All Henry has to do is keep his grades up but that shouldn’t be a problem. Sure, Henry appears to be an idiot but the athletic department will set him up with a tutor and, as long as the coach is happy with him, it’s not like Henry’s actually going to have to go to class.
Upon arriving in Los Angeles, Henry picks up a hitchhiker (a very young Melanie Griffith) who promptly robs him of all of his money. Once he arrives at the university, he discovers that Coach Smith is not going to be the surrogate father figure that he was expecting. Instead, Coach Smith is a rather cold and ruthless taskmaster, whose main concern is winning. When Henry, who is by far the shortest player on the team, struggles, Smith tells Henry that he needs to renounce his scholarship and return home. When Henry refuses to do so, Smith becomes obsessed with trying to break him.
As Henry’s roommate, Tom (Cory Faucher), points out, Henry’s head is not in the game. Instead, Henry can’t stop thinking about his tutor, Janet (Annette O’Toole). At first, Janet assumes that Henry is just a dumb jock, largely because Henry’s a jock and he spends the first half of the movie acting really, really dumb. Then, out of nowhere, Henry reveals that he’s not only read Moby Dick but he can quote passages from memory. In fact, Henry even understands that Ahab was — wait for it — obsessed! Oh my God, Janet realizes, Henry’s literate! In fact, Janet exclaims that Henry is the first person she’s met who has actually read Moby Dick! (Really?) Janet and Henry fall in love but, unfortunately, Janet is already dating her psychology professor.
(The professor has got a beard that looks like it reeks of stale weed and he says stuff like, “Have you seen my sandals?,” so we know better than to take him seriously when he compares the popularity of college athletics to the rise of fascism. When Henry accuses him of being a hippie, the professor just smirks and says something condescending. Stupid hippie.)
Will Janet and Henry fall in love? Will Janet dump her unattractive and unappealing boyfriend so she can date Henry? Will Henry manage to pass his classes? Will Henry ever get a chance to prove himself on the court? Will … oh, why even ask these questions? You already know what’s going to happen in this movie. There’s really not a single unexpected moment to be found in One on One. Everything about the film, from the coach’s ruthlessness to Henry’s transformation from idiot to savvy player, feels pre-ordained. It’s a predictable movie but, at the same time, it’s a likable movie. At the start of the film, Benson overplays Henry’s stupidity and O’Toole overplays Janet’s brittleness but, at the film progresses, both performers seem to relax and, by the time the end credits role, they’re actually a fairly likable couple. Benson even gets a killer final line, one that I imagine made audiences in 1977 applaud.
That said, the film is pretty much stolen by G.D. Spradlin. Spradlin was a former Oklahoma oilman who reinvented himself as a politician and then as a character actor. Best known for playing Senator Pat Geary in The Godfather, Part II, Spradlin had a flair for bringing casually corrupt authority figures to life. In One on One, Spradlin turns Coach Smith into a Mephistophelean figure, offering Henry success at the cost of his soul. Coach Smith is arrogant, oily, casually racist, and an all-around jerk but, at the same time, it is also obvious that he knows how to lead a team to victory. The great thing about Spradlin’s performance is to be found in not just how menacing he is but in how charismatic he is. You never doubt that Coach Smith is both a lousy human being and an absolutely brilliant coach. If nothing else, he’s good at his job.
As I said at the start of this review, I am not really sure why I recorded One on One but it turned out to be better than I was expecting. It is a flawed and uneven film but worth watching for Spradlin’s intriguingly villainous turn.
It took a while but Terry Gilliam has finally made his Don Quixote film.
How long is a while? Try 19 years. That’s right. When pre-production started on The Man Who Killed Don Quixtoe, Bill Clinton was President, George W. Bush was governor of Texas, Barack Obama was starting his first team in the Illinois State House, and Donald Trump was a real estate developer. Shooting started in 2000 with Jean Rochefort and Johnny Depp in the starring roles but was suspended when the production ran out of money. In 2002, Lost in La Mancha, a documentary about Gilliam’s then-unfinished film, was released.
Gilliam didn’t give up on the film Over the next couple of years, production was started and stalled a number of times. Everyone from Robert Duvall to John Hurt to Ewan McGregor was cast in the film at one time or another. I think most people assumed that the film would never be finished.
Well, those people were wrong. Gilliam’s dream project has finally be completed, with Jonathan Pryce and Adam Driver in the leading roles. It would seem now that the film’s biggest challenge is to live up to all the hype and expectation that comes along with having a 19-year pre-production period.
As for right now, the film does not have an American release date but, yesterday, the first trailer for the French market was released. And here it is!
Earlier this year, I read Ray Bradbury’s original novel so I hope the upcoming HBO film version of Fahrenheit 451 will do justice to the book’s themes. The trailer below feels a bit more like Blade Runner than Bradbury but Michael B. Jordan and Michael Shannon both seem to be ideally cast.
(The third one does deserve some credit for allowing Kyle Secor to go totally over the top but all the stuff about Elizabeth Mitchell’s presidential campaign was sooooooooo boring!)
Apparently, The First Purge is going to be a prequel. It’s going to show us how the Purge came to be, which sounds … well, to be honest, I’ve never really cared how the Purge came to be. In fact, one reason the franchise worked is because they didn’t waste a lot of time explaining all the exact details about how the Purge came to be. So, I’m not really sure if this is a good idea.
There’s a new director for this installment so it’ll probably suck but here’s the trailer anyway!
With the release of Avengers: Infinity War right around the corner, Marvel has released a whole new collection of character posters! Just in case you were wondering who, from the MCU, is going to show up in Infinity War, here’s a partial reminder!
(By the way, the answer would appear to be just about everyone who has ever appeared in an MCU film!)
What’s an Insomnia File? You know how some times you just can’t get any sleep and, at about three in the morning, you’ll find yourself watching whatever you can find on cable? This feature is all about those insomnia-inspired discoveries!
If you were having trouble getting to sleep around two in the morning last night, you could have turned over to Starz and watched the 2016 film, The Comedian.
It probably wouldn’t have helped. It’s not that The Comedian is a particularly interesting movie or anything like that. Abysmally paced and full of dull dialogue, The Comedian would be the perfect cure for insomnia if it just wasn’t so damn loud. Robert De Niro plays an aging comedian named Jackie Burke and, in this movie, being an aging comedian means that you shout out your punch lines with such force that you almost seem to be threatening anyone who doesn’t laugh. However, the threats aren’t necessary because everyone laughs at everything Jackie says.
Actually, it’s a bit of an understatement to say that everyone laughs. In The Comedian, Jackie is such a force of pure, unstoppable hilarity that all he has to do is tell someone that they’re fat and literally the entire world will shriek with unbridled joy. The thing with laughter is that, in the real world, everyone laughs in a different way. Not everyone reacts to a funny joke with an explosive guffaw. Some people chuckle. Some people merely smile. But, in the world of The Comedian, everyone not only laughs the same way but they also all laugh at the same time. There’s never anyone who doesn’t immediately get the joke and, by that same token, there’s never anyone who can’t stop laughing once everyone else has fallen silent. The Comedian takes individuality out of laughter, which is a shame because the ability to laugh is one of the unique things that makes us human.
Anyway, The Comedian is about a formerly famous comedian who is now obscure. He used to have a hit TV show but now he’s nearly forgotten. Why he’s forgotten is never made clear because nearly everyone in the movie still seems to think that he’s the funniest guy in the world. Jackie’s an insult comic and people love it when he tells them that they’re overweight or when he makes fun of their sexual preferences. This would probably be more believable if Jackie was played by an actor who was a bit less intense than Robert De Niro. When De Niro starts to make aggressive jokes, you’re natural instinct is not so much to laugh as it is to run before he starts bashing in someone’s head with a lead pipe.
Anyway, the plot of the film is that Jackie gets into a fight with a heckler. The video of the fight is uploaded to YouTube, which leads to a scene where his manager (Edie Falco) stares at her laptop and announces, “It’s going viral!” Later on, in the movie, Jackie forces a bunch of old people to sing an obnoxious song with him and he goes viral a second time. I kept waiting for a shot of a computer screen with “VIRAL” blinking on-and-off but sadly, the movie never provided this much-needed insert.
In between beating up the heckler, ruining his niece’s wedding, and hijacking a retirement home, Jackie finds the time to fall in love with Harmony Schlitz (Leslie Mann), a character whose name alone is enough to The Comedian one of the most annoying films of all time. Harmony’s father is a retired gangster (Harvey Keitel) and you can’t help but wish that Keitel and De Niro could have switched roles. It wouldn’t have made the movie any better but at least there would have been a chance of Keitel going batshit insane whenever he took the stage to deliver jokes.
I’m not sure why anyone thought it would be a good idea to cast an actor like Robert De Niro as a successful comedian. It’s true that De Niro was brilliant playing a comedian in The King of Comedy but Rupert Pupkin was supposed to be awkward, off-putting, and not very funny. I’m not an expert on insult comics but, from what I’ve seen, it appears that the successful ones largely succeed by suggesting that they’re just having fun with the insults, that no one should take it personally, and that they appreciate any member of the audience who is willing to be a good sport. Jackie just comes across like a cranky old misogynist. Watching Jackie is like listening to your bitter uncle play Vegas. I guess it would help if Jackie actually said something funny every once in a while. A typical Jackie joke is to refer to his lesbian niece as being a “prince.” Speaking for myself, when it comes to Robert De Niro being funny, I continue to prefer the scene in Casino where he hosts the Ace Rothstein Show.
Perhaps the funniest thing about The Comedian is that, when it originally released into theaters, it was advertised as being “The Comedian, a Taylor Hackford film,” as if Taylor Hackford is some type of Scorsese-style auteur. Taylor Hackford has been making films for longer than I’ve been alive and he has yet to actually come up with any sort of signature style beyond point and shoot. The second funniest thing is that The Comedian was billed as a potential Oscar contender, up until people actually saw the damn thing.
Though it may have failed at the box office, The Comedian seems to show up on Starz quite frequently. They always seem to air it very late at night, as if they’re hoping people won’t notice.
4 Shots from 4 Films is just what it says it is, 4 shots from 4 of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 Shots from 4 Films lets the visuals do the talking!
In honor of Marlon Brando’s birthday, here’s…
4 Shots From 4 Films
A Streetcar Named Desire (1952, dir by Elia Kazan)
On Sunday night, my family and I ended our Easter Sunday by watching Jesus Christ Superstar Live. Now, before I say anything else about NBC’s latest live musical production, there are a few things that I should make clear:
In college, there was this girl in my dorm who started the semester as a pagan, spent a month as an evangelical, and then ended the semester as a pagan again. When she was going through her evangelical phase, she would listen to the Jesus Christ Superstar soundtrack constantly, with the volume turned up so loud that you could hear it up and down the hallway. Seriously. 24 hours a day. 7 days a week. After three days, I was sick of hearing it. I found myself wondering if anyone had ever been driven to murder over having to listen to Heaven On Their Minds one too many times. Fortunately, something happened to cause her to once again lose her faith and she went back to listening to Fall Out Boy.
For quite some time afterward, I would instinctively cringe whenever I heard any of the songs from Jesus Christ Superstar. In fact, it wasn’t until I first came across the 1973 film version that I was able to once again appreciate it as a musical and overlook its association with that annoying pagan. From the first time I watched it, I really liked that movie and, every time I rewatch it, I like it even more. When I started watching Sunday’s production, I was seriously wondering if I’d be able to set aside my feelings about both the pagan and the movie and judge the television version on its own merits.
Well, I shouldn’t have worried. While I still prefer the original film version, Sunday’s television production was wonderfully conceived and executed. From the first note of music to the final curtain call, Jesus Christ Superstar Live In Concert captured my attention and refused to let it go, keeping me watching even through the lengthy commercial interruptions. The musicians and the singers sounded great, or at least they did once the audience mics were turned down. (At the start of the show, the audience was so loud that they threatened to drown out Heaven On Their Minds.) The production design was simply amazing, combining downtown New York with ancient Judea in a way that reminded us just how timeless the musical’s story truly is. (The 1973 film opened with a bunch of hippies driving through the desert. The 2018 production opened with Jesus’s name being spray painted on a wall. Both openings felt perfect for the story that was being told.)
As for the cast, Brandon Victor Dixon was compellingly intense as Judas and Norm Lewis was properly intimidating as Caiaphas. The big marquee name was Alice Cooper, who obviously enjoyed playing the production’s burlesque version of Herod. That said, the entire show was stolen by Ben Daniels, who was wonderfully conflicted as Pilate. I wasn’t as impressed by Sara Bareilles as Mary Magdalene, or I should say that I apparently wasn’t as impressed with her performance as everyone else on twitter. (To me, she seemed a bit too peppy, especially in the early numbers. I know I’m in the minority as far as that goes.) Finally, in the role of Jesus, John Legend grew on me. Of course, in the show, Jesus doesn’t really become an interesting character until he sings “Poor Jerusalem” and that was the moment that Legend himself seemed to truly feel comfortable with the role.
It’s probably pointless to compare the 1973 film to the 2018 version but still, I did find it interesting how the live version reimagined the relationship between Jesus and Judas. In the 1973 version, Jesus is largely aloof for almost the entire film. Judas seems to be frustrated because he can’t figure out what Jesus is planning to do and Jesus himself never seems to feel that he can allow himself to get truly close to anyone. In the film, Judas’s anger is the anger of someone who has spent the last few years of his life following a leader and who is now wondering if he’s been wasting his time. He’s like a Democrat who has just realized that his party is even less interested in reigning in Wall Street than the Republicans.
In the live version, the Jesus/Judas relationship came across as being a bromance gone wrong. In this version, Judas’s disatisfaction is less political and more jealousy over Jesus being closer to the Magdalene than to him. When Judas snaps at Jesus in the 2018 version, Jesus actually seems to get personally offended. The dynamic between Dixon and Legend is definitely different from the one between Ted Neeley and Carl Anderson in the original version. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with that. That’s one of the wonderful things about theater. When successfully done, each subsequent production brings something new to an old story.
Jesus Christ Superstar definitely worked. As far as the current wave of live television musicals is concerned, this was the best one yet.
Through the Shattered Lens 