The Weekly Gravy #43

I only ended up watching three films this week, so I’m going to start with a quick rundown of the recently announced line-up for the Cannes Film Festival. You can read the whole list here, so I’ll just note what stands out to me.

Obviously the biggest films for me are Leos Carax’s Annette (I’ve made my excitement for that film very clear already), Paul Verhoeven’s Benedetta (which looks quite good in its melodramatic way), and Wes Anderson’s The French Dispatch; indeed, I think these are the most-anticipated films of the festival for a great many viewers. But among the competition, I’m also quite intrigued by Sean Baker’s Red Rocket, Justin Kurzel’s Nitram, Joachim Trier’s wonderfully titled The Worst Person in the World, Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s three-hour Drive My Car.

And in the Un Certain Regard lineup, Kogonada’s After Yang has to be my most-anticipated title, given how much I loved Columbus (it also stars Colin Farrell, who’s one of my favorite actors), but Valdimar Jóhannsson’s Lamb and C.B. Yi’s Moneyboys also sound promising. And although Todd Haynes’ The Velvet Underground is being shown out of competition, I’ll definitely want to see it. Unfortunately, there’s not a great deal of information available about most of the films at this year’s festival just yet, so I’m basing my interest more off the reputations of the cast and filmmakers. We’ll learn more soon enough.

On the other hand, I’m disappointed that Sean Penn’s latest effort behind the camera, Flag Day, was given a competition slot; after the disaster of The Last Face, they might at least have put him in Un Certain Regard instead. Tom McCarthy’s Stillwater is premiering out of competition, and it frankly looks pretty middling, while Oliver Stone’s latest documentary on JFK’s assassination, JFK Revisited: Through the Looking Glass, is also premiering (in the Cannes Premieres lineup), and between his obvious efforts to recapture past glories and his increasingly dubious politics, I’m awfully leery of it.

But it’s another month until the festival (which kicks off July 6), so let’s now move on to the reviews.

The Legend of the Stardust Brothers/Hoshikuzu kyōdai no densetsu (1985) – ***½

While the jukebox musical was a well-established genre by 1985 – Singin’ in the Rain being but one example – The Legend of the Stardust Brothers began when Haruo Chikada wrote the soundtrack album for a film that didn’t exist. The solution? Approach film student Makoto Tezuka (or Macoto Tezka), son of the legendary manga writer Osamu Tezuka, and have him craft a film to fit the songs. The result was this freewheeling spoof of celebrity culture, unsurprisingly thin in terms of story and character, but full of color and imagination and sheer fun. The quality and pure 80s-pop nature of the songs alone would’ve made it a guaranteed cult item, but it’s got the joyous surrealism to back it up.

We begin in a nightclub which seems to have come straight from the Golden Age of Hollywood; the club and its nearly immobile patrons are all in monochrome, but odd touches in the furnishings and their outfits betray the weirdness at play. The Stardust Brothers themselves (in full color) take the stage to perform, but their spirited performance makes no impression on the lifeless audience. They then launch into the story of their lives.

Some time earlier, Shingo (Shingo Kubota) was the egotistical lead singer of the band Super Car, and Kan (Kan Takagi) was a solo artist. After a performance, they are both summoned to the headquarters of Atomic Records, in the process meeting absurdly determined aspiring singer Marimo (Kyōko Togawa). Meeting with the label boss, Minami (Kiyohiko Ozaki), they are offered a lucrative contract…but only if they perform as a duo, “The Stardust Brothers,” and do as they are told. They reluctantly agree, and make Marimo president of their fan club.

They rise to stardom in a matter of days, Atomic’s powers of media manipulation ensuring huge sales and scores of screaming fans. But just as quickly, the pitfalls of celebrity and Shingo’s behavior bring their dream crashing down, and Marimo, having filled in for an absent Shingo at one concert, becomes a star instead, as does Kaoru (Issay), the son of a powerful public figure.

Marimo finds the down-and-out Brothers (who’ve just discovered that they are brothers), and suggests they leave Atomic behind and do their own thing, but Kaoru, who wants Marimo, has been spying on them and tries to manipulate events to his ends. A chase and a huge dance party ensue, with a final absurd revelation to cap off the Brothers’ story before we return to the nightclub and end on a rather ambiguous note.

The story, of course, is just a framework for Chikada’s songs, which are quite good in of themselves and come to gloriously goofy life under Tezuka’s direction. From the opening credits number, with the chorus “Stardust, stardust, stardust, stardust…scum of stars!” to the star-making montage set to “Songs in the Hearts of Young Peope,” to the malaise-of-celebrity sequence set to “Monitor,” to the hallucinatory freak-out set to “Ballad of Past Years,” to “Automatic” with its wonderful refrain “Please! Invent a time machine for me!” to the chase sequence set to “Crazy Game,” the songs are a joy to hear and the numbers a delight to watch.

Tezuka was in his early 20s when the film was made, and that’s reflected in the sheer variety of sights and styles his direction encompasses. There’s farce in the antics of Atomic’s security guards, a touch of science-fiction in Kaoru’s teleporting car, deliberately maudlin sentiment in the “Real Star” number, sheer horror when Shingo gets high and sees monsters all around him (the film even throws in some animation during this segment), and down-to-earth humanity whenever Marimo’s around. It’s a film which does anything and everything it feels like.

But Tezuka’s talent is such that, for the most part, he pulls it off. Chikada’s music certainly helped, and I wouldn’t be surprised if family connections gave him far more resources than most young filmmakers enjoy, but there’s an energy and control to the direction which speaks to his own abilities. It’s well-shot, has properly gaudy production design and costumes (but not to the point of distraction), and the editing, while best in the actual numbers, keeps the action flowing smoothly.

It’s his script that doesn’t quite measure up; I don’t mind a musical having a thin story, since most of them have to make room for the songs anyway. But there’s just not quite enough distinction to the characters, or enough wit in the dialogue, to compensate. The Gay Divorcee had a fairly ridiculous story, but it also had some really funny lines and characters with personality. Which is not to say that Stardust Brothers isn’t funny or that the characters don’t have any life to them – it is and they do – but they’re decidedly subordinate to the numbers and the overall aesthetic, making for a film that’s fun to watch but that doesn’t necessarily stick with you.

The acting is okay. Shingo is really kind of a jerk, but Kubota at least makes sure he’s a funny one whose arrogance is a constant hindrance. Takagi is properly likable as the laid-back Kan, Ozaki is suitably mysterious as the mysterious Minami, and Issay (who reminds me of Bowie) is amusingly absurd in his own spoiled pompousness. But it’s Togawa, as the driven, yet kind and sensitive Marimo, who provides the film with what depth it has. It’s got high spirits to spare, but it’s only when Togawa is around that our hearts are engaged as much as our eyes and ears.

Still, The Legend of the Stardust Brothers is a real blast in the moment, the kind of film that was made to have a cult following and does – but as of this writing, only a small one (it has just over 300 votes on the IMDb). So if you get the chance, check it out – and if not, at least listen to the songs, because they’re prime examples of 80s J-pop.

Score: 84

A Quiet Place Part II (2020) – ***½

A Quiet Place had been one of the major success stories of 2018, an original horror thriller that earned critical praise, box-office success (it made over 15 times its budget in theaters alone), and even some awards attention, including a SAG award for Emily Blunt (who oddly didn’t earn an Oscar nomination to match). And it was a good film, though I never quite understood why it received such a high level of praise. But the sequel is good enough, and builds upon the first film successfully enough, that I want to go back and see if the original is stronger than I gave it credit for at the time. I still wouldn’t say it’s a truly great franchise, but I’m quite game for a Part III.

The film begins on the day the aliens, with their hypersensitive hearing, great speed, and capacity for dismemberment, first arrived on Earth, as seen by the members of the Abbott family: father Lee (John Krasinski), mother Evelyn (Blunt), daughter Regan (Millicent Simmonds) and oldest son Marcus (Noah Jupe). Of course, Lee sacrificed himself at the end of the first film, around the same Regan discovered that her hearing aid can be used to create a high-frequency sound which renders the aliens highly vulnerable. Her deafness has also given the Abbotts an advantage, in that they all know American Sign Language, and can communicate easily without making a sound.

The film then skips ahead, to shortly after the end of the first film, when the surviving Abbotts – sans Lee but with a newborn baby whom they keep in a soundproof box – leave their damaged home to seek other survivors. They encounter Emmett (Cillian Murphy), an old friend from the before-times who is haunted by the loss of his own family, and who insists there is nothing good left in the outside world. Nonetheless, the Abbotts take refuge at his home in an abandoned foundry – partly out of necessity as Marcus has been injured by a bear trap.

They discover that someone, somewhere, is alive and broadcasting; namely, they’re playing “Beyond the Sea,” which Regan theorizes this is actually a coded message, tracing the signal to an island just off the coast a day’s journey away. She sets off on her own to find it, and Evelyn begs Emmett to go after her, which he reluctantly does; she then sets off to find medicine for Marcus and oxygen tanks for the baby’s box. The rest of the film follows the various characters as they must fight the aliens, the treacherous environment, and even their ruthless fellow human beings while seeking an enduring safe haven.

Most of the film’s back half is so densely packed with incident that summarizing it would be useless; rather, one should just sit back and let the tension, bolstered by Michael P. Shawver’s first-rate editing and Marco Beltrami’s fine score, work upon their nerves. But then, the film is appreciably tense from the very start, where we see the main street of the Abbott’s hometown as still and silent as it will be after the aliens attack. The carefully established mundanity of an average day, and how it collapses into chaos, are ample testimony to Krasinski’s skills as a director. There’s also some canny use of sound, as we alternate between the cacophony of the situation and the dead silence of Regan’s perspective.

That same tension pervades the entire film, and the performances reflect the state of permanent trauma the characters are stuck in. Blunt and Jupe are both quite solid, but it’s Simmonds and Murphy who really command the film, Simmonds with her fierce determination to carry on her father’s efforts to find the remnants of humanity and Murphy with his gradually reawakening humanity, finding new hope in the wake of soul-crushing loss. Despite some occasional scenery-chewing, the performances effectively anchor the story in emotional reality.

They make for some of the more predictable elements of Krasinski’s script; without giving too much away, the actual plotting of the third act tends to feel a bit obvious and contrived – Marcus’ little jaunt around the foundry in particular seems like an excuse to bring another alien on the scene – although the film manages to keep us invested thanks to the actual filmmaking on display. And the ending, which echoes the final moments of the first film (which I personally found a bit silly), takes a standard horror-thriller beat and adds just enough ambiguity that Part III could go in some rather intriguing directions, if it dared to.

Kudos is also due to Polly Morgan’s cinematography, Jess Gonchor’s production design, the makeup, the soundscape, and the special effects, though the CGI is occasionally just a touch obvious. A Quiet Place Part II may or may not be better than the first film, but for my part it’s about as well-managed a sequel as one could hope for, a continuation and expansion of the first film that feels organic and doesn’t overreach itself too much, that doesn’t lose sight of the characters who anchored the original and effectively introduces new ones. Good show.

Score: 83

The Towering Inferno (1974) – ***

I’ve seen The Towering Inferno a number of times over the years, ever since I got the bare-bones original DVD…sometime in high school, I think? Maybe even earlier than that. I decided to finally do a proper review of it, even though it doesn’t necessarily call for extensive commentary. Sure, it touches on some enduring themes – the bravery of firefighters, the dangers of corner-cutting in construction, the reluctance of people to own their mistakes in the face of catastrophe, the ways in which shared traumas bring people together and brings out their noblest – or basest – natures – but it’s primarily a spectacle, a long, loud, often exciting, often harrowing saga of one very long night, one very tall building, and one very nasty fire.

I’ve long been a fan of the disaster genre; my personal favorite would probably be Independence Day, from the genre’s 90s resurgence, but from its heyday in the 70s I’d give precedence to Airport and Inferno, with Juggernaut (a far better film than either) straddling the line between a thriller and a true disaster film. As for The Poseidon Adventure, I’ve only seen it once, and thought it was fine but not really memorable. I should really do a longer piece focusing on an overview of the genre; it’ll give me an excuse to watch stuff like The Swarm and The Concorde…Airport ‘79. (I’m sorry, Oscar nominee The Swarm.)

In the meantime, I think one could make a case for Towering Inferno being, if not the best of genre, at least the quintessential example of it. Airport is a little too heavy on the soap opera elements; The Poseidon Adventure depicts a disaster unlikely to affect most viewers. But The Towering Inferno not only balances the soapy elements with the ever-growing threat posed by the fire, but depicts a disaster which could well touch the life of any viewer who lives or works in such a building, or fights fires, or knows someone who does. Indeed, for a modern viewer, less focused on the star power than on the blazing spectacle, the personal dramas become almost satirically irrelevant.

After all, how much can we really care about whatever it is architect Doug Roberts (Paul Newman) wants to do in the wilderness, or whether his girlfriend Susan Franklin (Faye Dunaway) takes the magazine editor job she wants, or chucks it all to live in the woods with him? Especially when they’ve got the time and the means to enjoy a little afternoon delight in the luxury bedroom he’s apparently got set up right behind his office? (Ah, the 70s.) And how much do we care whether slimy builder Roger Simmons (Richard Chamberlain) bothers to preserve his marriage to Patty (Susan Blakely), or whether sly old con-man Harlee Claiborne (Fred Astaire) will fleece Lisolette Mueller (Jennifer Jones), the kind-hearted widow who can see the heart of gold he so clearly has?

Not much, beyond our basic attachment to the stars themselves, not when Simmons’ efforts to cut costs on building the 135-story Glass Tower included used lower-grade wiring than Roberts specified, causing a spark in a supply closet, which in turn causes a fire which eventually breaks out of the closet, and soon starts working its way up the building—while a dedication party, 300 strong, is taking part on the top floor. The San Francisco Fire Department is called in, and for the rest of the film they fight the fire valiantly, but it will finally require a dangerous gambit, involving explosives and a million gallons of water, to bring the inferno to an end, and then only after many lives are lost. Long before then, we have ceased caring what Roberts and Franklin do about their glamorous dilemma.

Towering Inferno earned a whopping eight Oscar nominations in its day, and three wins; some are well-deserved, while others are a shade baffling. The wins weren’t terrible choices; the cinematography by Fred J. Koenekamp and Joseph Biroc keeps the action properly framed and achieves some moments of devastating grandeur, the editing by Harold and Carl Kress does an effective job at balancing the various centers of action and balancing the moments of tension and release so that we aren’t unduly fatigued by the 165-minute running time, and the Oscar-winning song, “We May Never Love Like This Again,” performed during the party scene by Maureen McGovern, is a pleasant enough 70s ballad. None of these were the best choice possible—it’s especially disappointing that “We May Never Love Like This Again” beat the title song from Blazing Saddles—but I can understand them.

Also reasonable are the nominations for Best Sound—aside from some awkward dubbing it sounds great, with the roar of the fire and the sounds of shattering glass being especially visceral—for John Williams’ score, which isn’t one of his iconic works but still achieves the epic sweep and nerve-rattling tension the material requires, and for the wonderfully dated art direction, the interiors of the tower being filled with golds, browns, oranges and greens, all arranged in the very finest manner of the kitschiest decade in American decor—and destroyed in the finest manner of the genre, as the luxurious building becomes an obstacle course at best and death chamber at worst.

It would’ve also deserved nods for its visual effects, which hold up remarkably well between the wholly convincing miniatures and the terrifying explosions which rip them apart (it’s rather absurd that the shoddy effects in Earthquake did get recognized), and for its makeup, as the characters are gradually stained by smoke and scars. On a technical level, it’s a hard film to fault.

But then there’s the Supporting Actor nod for Astaire; he thankfully lost the Oscar to De Niro for The Godfather Part II, but actually won the BAFTA and Globe. He’s charming, as he always was, but aside from his poignant final scene, there’s just not enough to Claiborne or his arc to merit even a nomination, let alone a win. He’s a shifty old fraud who turns out to be all right after all, not because it’s an organic development for his character, but because what else would he turn out to be? He’s here because the film was a big deal and because the Academy had failed to nominate him for 40 years. I get the nomination, but he’d have been a dreadfully weak winner.

But then, none of the acting in the film is much better than fine. Not much of it is worse than fine (well, acceptable), but the actors mostly draw upon their inherent charisma than upon their actual skills. Newman is good, at least when he gets to rage against the corruption which compromised his building. William Holden isn’t bad as the chief builder (and Chamberlain’s father-in-law) who tries to maintain a slick, schmoozing facade as his mistakes catch up with him, and Chamberlain is properly sleazy. Jones (who got a Globe nomination; it was also her final role) is suitably charming as well, tender-hearted but nobody’s fool. And as an ill-fated advertiser, Robert Wagner does a nice job juxtaposing slick glad-handing with an awareness of his impending doom.

On the other hand, Steve McQueen seems a bit flat as the fire chief who does the work of ten men in a single night; it was his last role before he spent several years away from the screen (his next film would be a passion project, an adaptation of Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People, and it flopped utterly), and he seems somewhat bored with the role. Likewise, Dunaway, who has really very little to do, seems all too aware of how much less rewarding a project this is than Chinatown. And as the security chief, O.J. Simpson is conspicuously wooden, except when he gets to rescue a cat. (I wonder if that’s where the makers of Independence Day got the idea for Boomer.) But these all-star films rarely do show the players at their best; it’s the stuntmen who really earned their salaries here.

Luckily, the film wasn’t nominated for Stirling Silliphant’s script (based on two novels, The Tower and The Glass Inferno), though the Globes gave it a nod; it’s a framework for the action scenes, not a really rich or memorable piece of writing. At times it’s overtly ham-fisted, but most of the time it’s just functional. And it wasn’t nominated for the direction by John Guillermin and producer Irwin Allen, but the staging is more efficient than distinctive. Allen did a fair amount of directing, but he was a producer at heart.

And that’s why it’s fitting he was nominated in that capacity when the film was nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars, a conspicuous weak link next to Chinatown, The Conversation, The Godfather Part II, and Lenny. It was a huge hit, a technical achievement, and it’s an effective film for what it sets out to be. But Best Picture? Over Murder on the Orient Express (if they wanted to nominate piece of pure entertainment)? Over Best Director nominees Day for Night and A Woman Under the Influence? To be sure, it’s much better than Earthquake, which the Globes bizarrely nominated over Inferno, but it’s still a bit ridiculous, especially 45 years after fact.

Taken purely on its own, though, it holds up fairly well. Some will say it looks worse in the wake of 9/11 (eerie fact: production wrapped on September 11, 1974), but for my money, it captures the sheer horror of such a scenario with the appropriate gravity. Yes, it’s meant as a spectacle, as a piece of entertainment. But it’s also harrowing and visceral. Again, it’s not necessarily the best disaster film ever made. But it might be the best example of the genre as we understand it.

Score: 73