The Weekly Gravy #50

Roadrunner: A Film about Anthony Bourdain (2021) – ***½

To watch Roadrunner is to come to the sad conclusion that the key to Anthony Bourdain’s success—his drive, his fierce passion, his restless energy—was ultimately the key to his tragedy. It’s not hard to conclude that the abrupt celebrity he gained at age 44, after the publication of Kitchen Confidential, was both the best and worst thing that ever happened to him. It allowed him, via the TV shows he starred in, to travel to world and engage in all manner of experience, but it brought about the end of his first marriage, ultimately ended his second (and kept him from being as devoted a father as he’d hoped), and opened the door for his final relationship, whose connection to his suicide is a matter of considerable debate.

But that passion, that deep feeling (as he says at one point, he could never be cool because coolness means “not giving a fuck,” and he very much does), also led him to form numerous close friendships, and the film is filled with interviews with friends, family, and colleagues, especially members of his longtime TV crew, all of whom speak about him with great emotion, ranging from admiration to frustration to grief, all of which testifies to the profound impact he had upon them. That he was beloved and mourned by those he didn’t know—that he could hardly go down the street without being approached by his fans—was itself a blessing and a curse.

I myself never watched any of his shows, and was mainly familiar with him through pop-cultural osmosis (and his appearance in The Big Short), but that was enough for me to appreciate his rich voice and impish attitude. The film makes ample use of both, along with his beautifully expressive face, whose capacity to reflect his inner turmoil gains considerable poignancy in retrospect. Controversially, it also uses deepfake technology to generate some voiceovers (using his own words, but obviously guessing at the inflections), and I’ll be honest, I’d never have guessed had I not known, and nothing in the film stood out to me as being obviously faked. Take that as you will.

It’s an effective portrait of a volatile personality, even if it leaves a few stones unturned to my own frustration; in particular, it heavily glosses over his life before Kitchen Confidential, and I would like to have known a bit more about that. It also does seem to assume some familiarity with the man and his work, but since I knew the basics, it wasn’t too hard to catch up. I suppose there’s only so much information a two-hour film can include while still functioning as a piece of entertainment (which this definitely strives to be, and that’s fine).

It’s a solidly made documentary, with a good score and effective editing, although I found the use of movie clips to be awfully on the nose at times. I don’t know that it’s a must-see if you’re not already a fan of his, but his zest for life and the fascinating journey he took through his own makes for a compelling couple of hours.

Score: 84

The Boy Friend (1971) – ***

It’s really quite fitting that Ken Russell followed The Devils, perhaps his most infamous film and still one of the most controversial studio productions of its time, with perhaps his most atypical film, a G-rated, lighthearted musical full of homages to Busby Berkeley’s work in the 30s and the valiant efforts of little theaters the world over to put on a show, however small the audience or great the pressure. Naturally, there’s pressure aplenty, from the presence of a famed Hollywood director looking for fresh talent to the leading lady breaking her leg and the shy assistant stage manager having to take her place to that same ASM nursing a crush on the leading man which might just be tragically unrequited. But, as befitting a classic movie musical, everything turns out all right in the end.

Russell took the stage musical by Sandy Wilson – a mid-50s hit that was an homage to the musicals of the 20s – and refashioned it, both setting it during a performance of the show in the late 20s or early 30s, and adding fantasy sequences to allow his imagination free reign. The original Broadway production of the musical was the Broadway debut of Julie Andrews, and so the film was the screen debut of iconic supermodel Twiggy, a friend of Russell’s, who was surrounded by members of his stock company, including Christopher Gable, Max Adrian, Murray Melvin, and in a cameo, Glenda Jackson as the incapacitated star.

It was modestly successful at time, with Twiggy winning Globes for Musical/Comedy Actress and Most Promising Newcomer and Russell winning the NBR for Best Director (for this and The Devils, which is just hilarious); it also got a Globe nom for Musical/Comedy Picture, came in 2nd on the NBR’s Top 10 list, got a WGA nom for Russell’s script, and earned Adrian a posthumous BAFTA nomination for Supporting Actor. It’s since been overshadowed by Russell’s other musical, the darker but still relatively accessible Tommy, and has possibly suffered for the decline in Russell’s reputation after the 1980s, but its very nostalgia has allowed it to age gracefully.

It’s not a great film, in part because Russell always had a tendency to indulge himself and does so here, with the Grecian bacchanal and the elfin fantasy sequence being especially gratuitous examples; the former was one of the sequences cut for the original American release, and the full version runs a hefty 138 minutes (with intermission), and they don’t always fly by. Russell’s script doesn’t always help, with the backstage dramas being a bit of a muddle (complicated by the lack of subtitles on the version I watched) and the characters being strictly archetypal.

But it’s a frequently enjoyable one nonetheless. As often as Russell goes over the top, his enthusiasm for the material (whatever his subsequent feelings about the film) and his visual style are often invigorating, aided immeasurably by Tony Walton’s wonderful production design, from the seedy theater itself to the tacky sets of the stage show to the elaborate worlds of the fantasies; Shirley Russell’s costumes match them every step of the way. Wilson’s songs are fairly fun (the theme song will get stuck in your head) and they’re well performed (the score adaptation earned an Oscar nomination), even if the musical numbers could’ve been just a little more varied; after a while one wearies of geometrically choreographed overhead shots.

Twiggy may not have really merited a Globe, let alone two, but she’s believably mousy as the lovelorn ASM and genuinely affecting as she pines for the man she loves, while effectively coming into her own as a leading lady. Gable, with his toothy grin and clean-cut looks, is just right as that man, and it’s easy to feel happy about their happy ending. Adrian is fun as the desperate, pompous manager of the company, matched by Bryan Pringle as an egotistical veteran who insists on playing his part his way. Antonia Ellis (who looks rather a bit like Jackson) is spot-on as the attention-seeking Maisie, the famously lanky Tommy Tune is great fun as an amnesiac hoofer (whose backstory is a nod to The Battleship Potemkin), and Vladek Sheybal is, as always, enjoyably sly as De Thrill, the director who might just make one of the theater’s motley crew a star.

Watching The Boy Friend, I felt its layers of reality and excursions into pure musical fantasy anticipated those in my beloved Pennies from Heaven. That’s a better film, of course, with a stronger story, a better grip on the relationship between reality and fantasy, and a sharper commentary on the way in which popular media affects how we view reality. But this is a genuinely fun, genuinely likable film that’s well worth seeking out for musical buffs – though if you want to hear Sheybal sing, you’ll have to watch The Apple instead.

Score: 76

Last Year at Marienbad/L’Année dernière à Marienbad (1961) – ****

At first glance, Last Year at Marienbad seems like the height of art-film self-parody; an enigmatic study of a love triangle among the idle rich, with much uncertainty as to whether the lovers met the previous year, or where, with many ambiguous philosophical monologues, and with intensely stylized filmmaking and acting that all but ensure no trace of life of liveliness can break through the Baroque settings and high fashion. It’s not hard to understand how one would throw their hands up and declare it all pretentious nonsense – the Medveds did, sticking it in their Fifty Worst Films of All Time and ripping into its ambiguity and stylization as they did with Ivan the Terrible.

But as with that film, I contend they totally missed the point. This is the kind of film where you get out of it what you put into it. And if you come prepared to scorn it for how far removed it is from reality and how little it explains, you’ll have your hands full – but for me, there are so many more rewarding ways to consider this film, emphasis on many; because so little is explained, because so much is constantly being thrown into doubt, you can apply any number of interpretations to it.

For my part, I think you could call it the best adaptation of The Great Gatsby we’re ever likely to get, with the first man (Giorgio Albertazzi) being at once Gatsby and Nick Carraway, trying to regain the love he thought he once had, all too aware of the artificial world he’s moving through, filled with glamorously inert people who engage in inane conversation, play childish games, and do nothing of value or consequence. He’s fighting against the ever-shifting details of his memory, against the woman’s ambiguous behavior, against the embalmed dignity of the resort they’re at – “And so we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”

The woman (Delphine Seyrig) would then be Daisy, as maddeningly elusive in her attitudes and as trapped by the high society she cannot help but be a part of. By turns, the woman claims not to remember the man, claims never to have been to wherever they met (was it Marienbad? or was it Friedrichsbad?), claims that it would be impossible for them to be together, and appears ready to leap into his arms and go off with him. But maybe there’s a touch of Jordan Baker in her, too – in her dark hair, or that streak of knowingness which only deepens the mystery of her nature.

And the other man (Sacha Pitoëff) could be Tom, although that’s a bit of a stretch; he’s not a cruel brute like Tom, but a quiet, fatalistic man who likes challenging the other guests at the resort to a game called Nim: arrange a set of objects, usually cards or matchsticks, in four rows of one, three, five, and seven. Remove as many as you like from any one row per turn. The person left with the last object loses. The other man always wins. At the end, he knows that the woman will leave him for the first man, but are they married? We’re not sure. Do they love each other? Does anyone, in this world?

So the Gatsby interpretation doesn’t fit perfectly. But what interpretation would? My father sees it as a take on Orpheus and Eurydice, with the other man (who’s quite cadaverous in appearance) being a Death figure, and the resort being Hades, or at least a kind of purgatory. But he bases his take on the statue on the resort grounds, which to him is Orpheus leading Eurydice out of the underworld. But in the film itself, the statue is interpreted differently – is the man trying to stop the woman, or the other way around? Who are they? Figures from myth, or royalty in classical dress? What about the dog? The first man says it just happened to be passing by.

Alain Robbe-Grillet’s script is filled with such mysteries, and with ruminations by the first man on the details of the resort which, at the beginning, he repeats over and over, as if he is imprisoned and slowly going mad. (Some viewers may sympathize.) These extend to the very title, in which “last” could mean “previous” or “final.” That the script was nominated for an Oscar is a credit to the screenwriter’s branch of the Academy, who have always been more open towards foreign films than most other branches. That it didn’t win, with the Oscar going to the more accessible Divorce – Italian Style, says something about the Academy as a whole, but hey, at least they didn’t go with That Touch of Mink.

But it’s Alain Resnais’ direction that turns Robbe-Grillet’s fascinating script into such a magnificent film. He perfectly realizes the atmosphere of the resort, choreographing the guests precisely as they freeze, move, and freeze again, without it becoming laughable or betraying the purity of the enigma for the sake of emotional impact. He’s aided immeasurably by Sacha Vierny’s cinematography, which glides beautifully through the ornate halls (it seems to anticipate The Shining at times) and manicured grounds of the resort, and glows as only black-and-white can. The editing playfully blends the scenes into an elusive whole, hard to precisely parse yet with a precision that justifies trying.

The production design, using a mix of sets and various European resorts (but not Marienbad itself), is dripping with little details that draw the eye yet are as beautifully dead as the people who move about them seem to be. In keeping with the theme of memory, the resort seems to exist outside of time, with only a few furnishings and the clothes worn by the characters to keep us situated in the present. Those clothes, by the way, were at least partly provided by Chanel, and they’re suitably chic. And the score, by Francis Seyrig, makes excellent use of the pipe organ to suggest the stillness of a cathedral – or a funeral – while introducing a traditionally lush theme at one point, as if to show how pure craft can create a romantic atmosphere out of this pure enigma.

Enigmas, of course, were a specialty of Resnais; his great Hiroshima mon amour and his fascinating Providence make much of the delicate, ever shifting nature of perception, and of how much we are mysteries to each other, and sometimes to ourselves. (His brilliant Night and Fog perhaps works because it so forcefully avoids ambiguity, confronting us with the hideous truth of the Holocaust.) There’s much more to discuss – the significance of the Hitchcock “cameo,” how the shooting-gallery scenes are echoed (I would think) in The Lobster, how the other man’s use of Nim parallels the famous chess game with Death in The Seventh Seal – but lest I write a whole book about this film, I highly recommend you see it for yourself. Highly.

Score: 94

Runaway (1984) – **½

Although he’s generally best remembered as a novelist, Michael Crichton had a solid career as a filmmaker in the 70s, writing and directing cult films like Westworld, Coma, and The Great Train Robbery. His fortunes in this field changed in the 80s with the failure of Looker, and this film continued the downward trend, failing even to earn back its $8 million budget at the domestic box-office. He’d only direct one more film, 1989’s Physical Evidence, and after its failure he stuck to writing for the rest of his career – the very next year he would publish Jurassic Park.

Runaway has achieved a modest cult following since it flopped in theaters, and given what a hunk of 80s genre cheese it is, I’m not surprised. How could a film with Gene Simmons (in his big-screen debut!) as the villain, armed with microchips that can turn household robots into killing machines and a gun that fires miniature heat-seeking missiles, backed by Jerry Goldsmith’s first all-electronic score, not gain a cult? If it were only a better film, it might have a bigger one.

And make no mistake, this is not a very good film. The script is especially weak – surprisingly so, given Crichton’s reputation – with a thin story, generic characters, and a villain who seems motivated more by his designated status as such than by any genuine human interests. It takes rather a while to even get to the meat of the story, such as it is, and it ultimately feels like two films – a generic police procedural and a generic piece of high-concept/low-payoff sci-fi. It feels like Crichton had the basic idea and had to turn it into a script before he’d fully developed it.

He didn’t really have the budget to do it justice, either.* The robots are a particular disappointment, being mainly big boxes with glowing lights or, in the case of the deadly “spiders,” wind-up toys which manage to kill multiple people who never think to step on them. The goofy-looking POV shots of the missile-bullets, the police cars which look like the Chevy Corsica my mom used to drive, and the hero’s tactical outfit for confronting a rogue domestic bot – a silver lamé shirt more suitable for figure skating and blue hockey pads – only add to the generally low-rent air.

Of course, I haven’t even mentioned the hero, Sgt. Jack Ramsay (Tom Selleck), a cop who specializes in neutralizing robots gone wrong; the film doesn’t quite seem to make up its mind if Ramsay is a badass hero, a slightly goofy everyman, or a rip-off of James Stewart in Vertigo; Ramsay is acrophobic, which comes into play mainly during the climax but otherwise feels like a contrived attempt to add depth to a flat character. Selleck seems mostly bored by the role, and comes off more as a whiny putz than a hero. Simmons, even without his KISS makeup, camps it up (“The TEM-plates, Ramsay!”), and it’s hard to say if you’re meant to take him seriously or not. You certainly can’t.

Crichton was often criticized for his female characters, and Runaway doesn’t exactly shine in this regard; Ramsay’s new partner, Officer Karen Thompson (Cynthia Rhodes), is quite obviously destined to be his love interest from early on, and neither Rhodes nor the script convey the grit or strength to make her believable. Worse is Jackie Rogers (Kirstie Alley), a secretary who’s Simmons’ lover and co-conspirator. Ramsay drools over her when she first appears, there’s an incredibly creepy scene where she’s made to strip while being searched for bugs, and Alley’s blasé delivery (with occasional flashes of the histrionic) would be a good fit if the film were meant as a satire, which I don’t think it was.

Crichton’s direction has a few high points, mainly a tense bullet-removal scene (which manages to work because it’s grounded and focused on the characters) and a fairly effective climax, which gets silly at times (those stupid spiders!), but which manages some real tension. But otherwise, it matches his underpowered script, linking set piece to set piece without ever building up a head of narrative steam. What’s Simmons’ motivation? I guess money is part of it, but he mainly seems to get off on being an evil bastard.

Add in some bizarre lapses in logic on the part of the characters, Ramsay crushing a robot with a chair like a pro wrestler, a badly dated electronic score by Jerry Goldsmith which sounds like what you’d hear at the supermarket in the early 90s, and the fact that co-star Stan Shaw provides a far more dynamic presence than Selleck, and you’ve got a film that’s just not very good at all. If you’re looking for a cheesy vintage genre film with a little polish, it’ll fit the bit, but it’s in no way a must-see.

Score: 58

*The budget was $8 million, which pales compared to other genre films of the year like Gremlins ($11 million), The Last Starfighter ($15 million), The Search for Spock ($16 million), Ghostbusters ($25-30 million), 2010 ($28 million), Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom ($28 million), and the year’s other Selleck vehicle, Lassiter ($20 million).