The Weekly Gravy #52

Jaws: The Revenge (1987) – *

What would it take to convince you of this movie’s badness? The fact that the tight shooting schedule prevented Michael Caine from accepting his Oscar for Hannah and Her Sisters? His famous comment about having never seen the film, which was supposed to be terrible, but having seen the house it paid for, which was terrific? Or, if you’re actually watching the damned thing, would the credit “And MICHAEL CAINE as Hoagie” do the trick? Having seen the movie, I can only hope the house was indeed worth it.

After all, this a movie based on the premise that a shark would seek revenge against the Brody family for the events of the last three films. Never mind that sharks don’t really have the emotional capacity to want revenge, or the close-knit social structure (they’re largely solitary animals) to justify it. What I want to know is how in the hell word spread among the sharks, or how they kept tabs on the Brodies to conduct their vendetta. Were they in league with the seagulls, perhaps?

The novelization of the film suggests there’s a voodoo curse at play, which would at least introduce a human antagonist – helpful, given that sharks don’t have voices or facial expressions. Except this one, which manages to roar during the film’s action-packed climax, which somehow isn’t the silliest thing to happen during that sequence. That’s the kind of movie we’re dealing with here, and if you’re watching it for any reason other than irony, God help you. (God help you regardless.)

The film begins with Sean Brody (Mitchell Anderson), an Amity Island police officer, getting fatally attacked by a shark whilst on duty in the bay. His grieving mother Ellen (Lorraine Gary) is persuaded to stay in the Bahamas with her surviving son Michael (Lance Guest), his wife Carla (Karen Young), and their daughter Thea (Judith Barsi). Ellen is haunted by the belief that the shark is deliberately targeting them, and begs Michael to step away from his work as an marine biologist. He refuses, and she eventually comes to realize her fears are irrational, settling into a golden-years romance with Hoagie (her husband having died some time previous).

But the shark has made its way to the Bahamas, first threatening Lance as he works underwater, later threatening Thea (and killing a bystander) at a Nassau beach. As the poster says, this time, it’s personal, and Ellen sets off alone to confront the beast once and for all – though she ends up getting some help from Michael, Hoagie, and Michael’s colleague Jake (Mario Van Peebles), leading to the aforementioned ludicrous showdown.

What makes it all the more deliciously absurd is that the version of the film generally shown today isn’t the version originally released in North America. Originally, Jake is killed by the shark, Ellen rams it with the prow of their boat, and the shark dies, breaking up the boat in the process, as we fade to Ellen preparing to fly back to Amity Island, all being right with the world once more, with Hoagie going on about “flying a hundred nuns to Nairobi.” Not a very satisfying wrap-up.

But test audiences objected to Jake’s death, so the ending was reworked to have the shark explode upon impalement (not only a ludicrous idea, but horribly executed), the ship to break up, and the survivors dog-paddle amongst the wreckage until Jake, mangled but alive, bobs to the surface, and eventually we cut to the scene at the airport as before. It’s not better, but it’s ridiculous enough to give you a final laugh before the credits roll.

Not that you won’t have had quite a few already. It takes a little while to really start sucking, but the longer it goes, the more it ups the shit-ante. If you haven’t already rolled your eyes at the Brodies’ inane banter (“He was the tomato thief of all time!”) or the juxtaposition of Sean’s bloody death with rehearsals for the Amity Christmas pageant, then Gary’s terrible performance – her serious acting is like Frances McDormand’s deadpan acting – and the horrible dialogue she has to deliver (“He died from fear. The fear of it killed him”) should get you chuckling.

But then Van Peebles shows up and it gets even worse. Not only does Jake provide grating comic relief (“If mediocrity were fat, you’d all be whales!”), but Van Peebles plays him with an accent about on par with Dan Aykroyd pretending to be “Lionel Joseph” in Trading Places, or Eddie Murphy playing the Bahamian Casanova “Dexter St. Jacques” in Raw (“What a beautiful girl doing by herself on the Island of Love?”). His not-death scene, a mess of bad editing, bad effects, slow-motion, and Michael yelling “JAAAAAAKE!!!” (complete with Meaningful Echo) is funnier than any of his intentional comedy.

There are other goofy bits, like a totally extraneous scene where Michael and Carla have some afternoon delight in the garage (“I’ve always wanted to make love to an angry welder”), or Michael’s many moments of dull brooding, courtesy of Guest’s lackluster performance. But nothing tops the appearances of the shark, a dreadfully unconvincing creation which not only earned the film a Razzie for Worst Special Effects, but got Bruce the Shark a nomination for Worst Actor. Certainly “he” does a very bad job at acting like a shark, but to be fair, the script required it.

The script, by Michael de Guzman, also got a Razzie nod, and it’s quite bad, but given the film’s incredibly rushed gestation (the script wasn’t even finished when shooting started) and the apparent issues in settling on a premise that pleased the studio – the filmmakers knew the whole shark-revenge plot was ridiculous – its shortcomings make a bit more sense. Indeed, more than any individual scene, it’s the flimsiness of the whole thing, the underdeveloped, throwaway nature of the story, that really lets it all down. Like the same year’s Superman IV: The Quest for Peace, it runs a pathetically scanty 90 minutes.

The film also earned Razzie nods for Worst Picture (losing to Leonard Part 6, which is, to be fair, worse), Worst Actress for Gary, Worst Director for Joseph Sargent (who doesn’t do a very good job, but again , given the circumstances, I think he managed as best he could), and, most baffling to me, Worst Supporting Actor for Caine. Sure, he’d just won an Oscar, and no, he’s not especially good here. But he’s getting by on his charm and the roguish nature of the character, not taking anything here seriously enough to embarrass himself. Van Peebles and Guest were both much worse.

Jaws: The Revenge ended or curtailed a lot of careers. It was Gary’s last acting role, Sargent’s last theatrical film (he did, however, continue to do noteworthy work on television), and appears to have been Guest’s last major film role (he too mostly moved into television). It ended, at least on the big screen, a franchise which began with one of the greatest horror-thrillers ever made (and one of the biggest hits of all time). It’s not the worst film of its year, or even the worst third sequel of the year (The Quest for Peace is worse). But it’s more than bad enough.

Score: 23

Detective Story (1951) – ****

What is the cost of striving for moral purity, or of expecting purity from others? For Det. James McLeod (Kirk Douglas), it’s a ceaseless loathing for the criminals he deals with every day, an insistence on seeing in today’s petty thief tomorrow’s murderer. And it’s a constant frustration in what he views as the weakness of his partners and the laxity of the courts. And, most tragically, an inability to accept that his wife Mary (Eleanor Parker), who had a child with another man before they even met, could be other than either a Madonna or a whore. Towards the end of the film, he struggles with a pounding headache, as if his rage at the world is a tumor crushing his brain. He’s a Javert surrounded by Valjeans.

But before we get to that point, we see a wide array of criminality, from a shoplifter (Lee Grant), who’s stuck in the precinct waiting for night court to open, to a young man (Craig Hill) who’s stolen money from his employer because he wanted to impress the woman he loves, to a career criminal (Joseph Wiseman) whose behavior is so flamboyant you wonder why he didn’t take up acting instead, to a doctor (George Macready) who has something to do with women and babies they don’t want or can’t have, and if the Production Code obliged the details to be kept vague, the loathing McLeod feels for the doctor, and the shattering secret the doctor knows about Mary, tell us more than enough.

On top of that, we see a wide variety of policemen, some just trying to get through to the end of their shift, some truly devoted to their jobs, some given to cracking wise, others to telling the unvarnished truth. The film covers an evening in the life of McLeod’s precinct, and if we move away to focus on this or that part of the action for a scene or two, we keep coming back to that main room, where so many people come and go and wait, and if it’s easy to see how this all began as a play, it’s also easy to see what the film does that no play can do.

It lets us see these characters’ faces in detail, allowing us to really feel the fear and confusion and anguish that tears at them. It lets us see in close-up how McLeod, at first so assured and wisecracking, even cocky, deteriorates over the course of the drama thanks to his uncontrollable rage and pathological sense of morality. It lets us see the utter defeat in Hill’s face and the determined devotion in the face of the young woman who loves him (Cathy O’Donnell). It lets us see the wheels turning in Wiseman’s mind as he contemplates a fateful decision which will cap this searing story with a genuine moment of tragedy. And on a lighter note it lets us see how Grant reacts, often silently, to everything going on around her.

William Wyler was one of the great Hollywood craftsmen, earning a record 12 Oscar nominations for directing (and winning three times, each time with a Picture win to match). Detective Story earned him his eighth Director nomination, and if it’s not one of his greatest efforts, it’s a very fine one; he makes the limited setting (there are a few exterior scenes, but it mainly sticks to the precinct) feel natural and the action flow realistically, while getting fine performances out of the entire cast.

Only Parker and Grant got Oscar nominations, and they’re both quite good; Parker is a shade overwrought in her big confession scene, but really shines in the scenes when she realizes just how self-destructively intense her husband is. She was nominated for Best Actress despite only having about 20 minutes of screentime, but by the end you feel like you’ve gotten a pretty full picture of her character. Grant, in her screen debut, got a Supporting Actress nod, also winning Best Actress at Cannes, and it’s not hard to see why; with her offbeat comic energy (a bit like a young Thelma Ritter) and observant presence throughout the film, culminating with her lovably earnest farewell to everyone in the precinct as she heads off to court, you can’t help but notice her. The performance is a bit theatrical and self-conscious (she played the role on the stage), but she’s oddly fascinating.

Douglas wasn’t nominated, despite having major roles in this and Ace in the Hole the same year; it’s hard to imagine who could’ve played McLeod better, who could’ve brought together his arrogance, brutality, and sheer sense of inner pain as well as him. He too goes just a touch over the top at points, but he’s magnetic throughout, as is Wiseman, who seems to have come from an alternate universe populated entirely by Method actors, but who manages to make his exaggerated behavior and strange, strangled voice feel entirely appropriate. And in more subdued roles, William Bendix scores as Douglas’ well-meaning partner, as willing to forgive as Douglas is incapable of doing so, and Horace McMahon is fine as the lieutenant in charge of the precinct, trying to keep McLeod in check and trying to get at the truth, however devastating it may be.

But the whole cast is excellent; I also really liked Warner Anderson as Macready’s oily lawyer, Frank Faylen as a wise-ass detective who handles the phones and incoming citizens, and Gladys George as an associate of Macready’s who plays at being a modern-day Mae West, but runs up against Douglas’ implacable drive for what he considers justice. Much credit is due not only to Wyler, but to the script, adapted by his brother Robert and Philip Yordan from the play by Sidney Kingsley, whose play Dead End had been successfully filmed by Wyler years earlier. If the story is dated in some aspects, it remains powerfully resonant in others, especially the conflict between the inflexible, unforgiving desire to punish and the humane desire to go easy on those who might not need to be punished to the fullest extent of the law.

The script was also nominated for an Oscar, but not Lee Garmes’ subtly effective cinematography, the fine, realistic sets, the smooth editing, or the film itself, which was passed over in favor of films like Decision Before Dawn, An American in Paris (which won the Oscar), and Quo Vadis – all decent films, but hardly as potent or memorable as this one, which has too long been too little known. At a time when the role of the police in American society is being questioned more intently than ever, it’s especially ripe for rediscovery.

Score: 91

Tokyo Olympiad/東京オリンピック (1965) – ***½

It’s one of my favorite American posters for a foreign film, and I’m surprised I hadn’t profiled it in one of my posts on the subject. From the mid-century misogyny of “The man’s picture…every woman will love,” to the cryptic claim “it may just be the second greatest picture of our time” (which case…what’s the first?), to the picture being in not just color, but blazing color, it’s a riot of absurdly enthusiastic copy. It’s also inaccurate; it purports to be “full length,” and the original American release ran around 95 minutes, far less than Ichikawa’s 170-minute original.

Happily, that version has long since been restored. At the time, the Japanese authorities were frustrated by Ichikawa’s emphasis on cinematic style and experimentation over simply recording the 1964 Olympic Games, but that very style has made it an enduring classic, a part of the Criterion Collection well before they assembled their mammoth Olympic boxset, and if I chose to watch it this week in light of the ongoing Olympics, again in Tokyo, its status ensured I would’ve gotten around to it sooner or later.

It opens with images of demolition, of buildings being cleared away to make room for the new National Stadium, where much of the 1964 Games took place. Ironically, that stadium was demolished to make way for the Japan National Stadium, built for the 2021 Games. Were Ichikawa still alive, he might have suggested using the demolition of the old National Stadium as a retroactive bookend to Olympiad. He delighted in such subversive touches.

Here we have the comic spectacle of race-walking, wherein the competitors must keep one foot on the ground at all times, and the sight of these men walking as fast as they can, bottoms swaying, arms swinging, and in the rain no less, is so absurd that the whimsical music ladled on top of the scene seems superfluous. We also have the musical thuds (muffled tubas, perhaps?) which accompany a montage of shot-put landings, the moderate chaos which results when a huge flock of pigeons are released during the opening ceremony, proving more of a nuisance than an inspiration, and the fleeting close-ups of old mens’ gullets, possibly juxtaposing the ages of officials and coaches with the general youth of the competitors. The narration, co-written by Ichikawa’s wife Natto Wada, is almost parodically over the top at times.

But Ichikawa doesn’t just send up the Games; there are scenes of athletic achievement as stunning as any ever put on film. Ann Packer’s surprise win in the women’s 800-meter race is a thrilling moment. Pole vaulting is possibly my favorite Olympic event, and there are some fine scenes of graceful clears and heart-breaking falls. And, most famously, there’s the depiction of legendary Ethiopian marathoner Abebe Bikila, with a long shot of him (featured in the reissue poster) running past thousands of onlookers, his pace steady, his focus intense, the music soaring as we behold his astounding stamina. It’s a magnificent sequence.

There are also poignant touches like the portrait of Chadian runner Ahmed Issa, one of two athletes representing his newly independent (only four years old at the time) country; in the end he fails to qualify for the finals, making his story a bittersweet one. (Sadly, he and Bikila would both die young.) And there are flashes of camaraderie between the athletes, especially during the closing ceremony, in which the unifying promise of the Games is approached if, sadly, never truly achieved. (The film gives only a fleeting, sheepish nod towards Japan’s role in World War II.)

Ultimately, however, it’s Ichikawa’s vision which comes through the strongest. There are striking images throughout, from the bookending shots of rising and setting suns, to a long shot of Mount Fuji, with the Olympic Torch being carried past at the bottom of the frame, to the sparing but impressive use of black-and-white, to the unsparing close-ups of faces, hands, and feet, showing just what goes into these feats of sport. Yoshio Ebara’s editing is also fantastic, especially in its use of slow-motion, and Toshiro Mayuzumi’s score is by turns witty and truly epic.

If I don’t quite rate it as a truly great film, it’s because there are a few too many scenes which drag (for me, the gymnastics sequence in particular), which lack the distinctive stamp of the best scenes, or which betray Ichikawa’s relative lack of interest in certain events. And yes, at 170 minutes, it might be just a little longer than it really needed to be. I can’t fathom cutting it by almost half, but some careful trimming might have helped. Still, it’s a very fine example of what this genre can be, and well worth seeing even for those not interested in Olympic history.

Score: 84

Annette (2021) – ****

After I first saw Annette, knowing I would need to rewatch it, I wrote a rather rushed review that didn’t really do the film justice. Having since seen it a second time, I’m simply writing a fresh review to take its place. And I’ll start by saying that the film only grew for me on a second viewing, easily taking its place as my favorite film of the year to date – and the best, I’d say, with The Sparks Brothers its strongest competition for both titles. But that’s just how it goes when your favorite band is involved in two separate films in the same year. I’m just glad both films were as good as I wanted them to be.

They’re a strange band, and Leos Carax is a strange filmmaker, so it only follows that this is a rather strange film – and yet, there’s a clear vision, a purpose behind the bizarre elements which makes it all the more rewarding. In brief, it tells the story of a stand-up comedian named Henry McHenry (Adam Drive), the “Ape of God” (a Wyndham Lewis reference?), and acclaimed opera soprano Ann Desfranoux (Marion Cotillard). Already in love when the film begins, they marry and soon have a child, a daughter named Annette. Ann’s career soars while Henry’s goes into decline, putting strain on their relationship.

During a trip on their yacht, they’re caught in a storm at sea and tragedy strikes…but out of that tragedy comes a preternatural gift, a vehicle of revenge which Henry seizes the opportunity to commercialize. But as before, Henry’s own toxic personality and brutish behavior lead to a tragic end, and if I choose not to spell out too much of what happens, it’s because the film makes it play rather better than it reads. Especially because it’s a musical.

To be sure, it’s somewhere between a traditional film musical and a through-composed piece like The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, with some conversations set to music and others spoken normally. And the songs themselves are less pieces meant to stand on their own than a means of telling the story. They’re very fine songs, of course, from the wonderfully spirited opening number “So May We Start” to the sweetly sensuous “We Love Each Other So Much” to the beautifully haunting “The Forest” to the vicious “You Used to Laugh” to the poignant “Girl from the Middle of Nowhere.” The music is inventive and the lyrics are witty – a bit heavy on the repetition, but with neat touches like the play on “may we” and “mais oui.”

Again, however, they’re meant to tell the story, and it’s a fascinating one, with a rather devastating look at the commodification and consumption of toxic masculinity, which can sell, sometimes very well indeed, but which is impossible to live with – sometimes literally. There’s a telling contrast between how Henry and Ann prepare for their respective performances, with Henry seemingly preparing for a boxing match, while Ann adopts a more meditative approach. And when they meet up afterwards, he says “I killed them” while she says “I saved them.”

Indeed, Henry, ostensibly a comedian, seems to rant at his audiences more than anything, holding them and the world in contempt, ordering them to laugh (they do), claiming he became a comedian because “it’s the only way I can tell the truth and not get killed for it.” Not that he seems to be telling many truths, but they love him. Ironically, a later performance in which he deadpans about tickling Ann to death – a rather better performance in comedic terms – inspires disgust from the audience. Is the film criticizing audiences for being fickle? Is it criticizing comedians for relying on misanthropic attitudes and baring their souls, if not also their asses? Maybe it depends on the viewer.

On the other hand, it’s pretty clear that Henry has a problem taking anything seriously, at least more seriously than his own interests. After they make love, he tickles Ann’s feet, overwhelming her with his boisterousness – a scene which, in retrospect, is haunting rather than heartwarming. And he holds baby Annette like an object rather than a human, often with her in one hand and a drink or a cigarette in the other. The film’s central tragedy, in fact, occurs because he can’t stop acting the fool. And despite repeated chances to change, he can’t or won’t, at least not until it’s too late.

The film makes a seemingly gimmicky choice in depicting Annette which works quite brilliantly, on one hand sidestepping a lot of potential technical issues and legal restrictions, on the other illustrating how parents so often impose their interests and ambitions on their children, impeding their ability to become their own people. It pays off beautifully in the film’s final scene, in which Henry’s illusions are finally demolished.

Sparks has an ability to combine the strange, the comic, and the poignant, and they do so here, both in their songs and the script they co-wrote with director Leos Carax; “You have no one to love” is a heartbreaking line, doubly so when you realize it could refer not just to loneliness but to the very inability to love. And in a pair of monologues the character of the Accompanist (Simon Helberg) expresses unrequited love, professional frustration, and awareness of the audience, excusing himself to conduct an especially powerful passage of music before resuming his speech.

Of course, part of the film’s success comes from how fully the performers buy into the material. Driver is perfectly cast, by turns an overgrown child, a fountain of bellicosity, and a force of brooding darkness. As an actor, he has a fine sense of the absurd (it served him well in The Dead Don’t Die) and the intense (the argument scene in Marriage Story) and puts them both to excellent use here. Cotillard likewise buys into the film’s stranger conceits, making potentially ridiculous scenes truly affecting, while embodying the role of a star soprano as capably as Driver embodies that of a stand-up. Helberg, with relatively limited screen time, gives a fine comedic performance with the odd trace of sympathetic nebbishry. And with even less screen time, little Devyn McDowell makes an excellent impression with a rather difficult role.

Still more comes from the filmmaking on display, which is uniformly first-rate. Carax’s direction rightfully won at Cannes; he embraces every bit of strange fancy and destructive emotion along the way, crafting a wide array of evocative images with cinematographer Caroline Champetier. There’s fascinating production design, brisk editing from Nelly Quettier that makes the hefty running time fly by (for the most part), magnificent sound design which gives weight to the film’s strange reality, and subtle but seamless visual effects to keep the fantasy intact.

I could pick a few nits about Annette, namely a mild lapse in the script in the second half, hardly enough to seriously damage the film, but a bit disappointing after the sheer brilliance of the first half. But even then, the final scenes are so fine as to make up for it. In the end, Annette is a true joy to behold, a film that’s everything I hoped for, and moreover, a film I can return to. And that, to quote a very different musical that I also hold dear, is the sweetest thing of all.

Score: 93