The Return of the King

I'm amazed.

I just couldn't get in to THE RETURN OF THE KING.

I think it was all just too much. Every time someone named some location, he did it so portentously that he seemed to be deliberately hamming up his exposition for the benefit of the viewer. I wanted another character to say, "Oh, yes. I've heard of it. I'm told they don't let people smoke in cafes there anymore." The battles went on and on and on, with the occasional head nod to the concepts of fear and battle fatigue, but with the characters so unaffected by their constant dances on death's doorstep that I came to suspect mental dysfunction. The emphasis on the Eowyn storyline felt even more like an example of commerce over storytelling than it had in previous chapters.

And once the spell is lost, ROTK just seems silly and overblown. I found myself wondering more about how Sauron fed and disciplined his troops than about whether the plucky hobbits would save the day. I groaned nearly every time Legolas spoke. I shuddered at the inconsistent levels of power demonstrated by various villains as the need arose.

That's not to say that there isn't some great stuff here. Peter Jackon created a sense of life in the faded shadow of a once-great empire. The meticulous care given to costuming, set design, and the craft of world creation pay dividends in the creation of an immersive land. The story appears to be told about as well as it can be told.

But once the spell is broken, it's broken. I expect that the next time I see this film, it'll be in a couple of years (when I deem my oldest to be ready for the violence). Hopefully, the experience will help me see ROTK through his eyes. I'd like to believe again.

The Two Towers

I remember feeling disappointed with THE TWO TOWERS upon its initial release.  I felt that the film suffered from the decision to make the dwarf a comic relief character.  I didn’t care about the Aragorn / Eowyn romance.  And the Treebeard stuff, well, it just pulled me right out of the picture.

This time around, I reacted differently.  I still didn’t care for the use of the dwarf in comic relief, particularly as the jokes weren’t funny.  I continue to think that Miranda Otto represents a significantly better find than Liv Tyler.  But Treebeard looks great on the small screen and I found myself marveling at the film’s seamless blend of practical effects and computer animation.

I did notice, however, that this film could serve as the foundation for a couple of pretty good drinking games.  Every time Frodo apologizes to Sam or Sam to Frodo, drink up!  Ok, maybe just the first five or ten times.  Any more than that, and the activity could go from game to contest to disaster pretty quickly.  Or how about every time Elijah Wood emotes the addicting / controlling influences of the Ring by rolling his eyes back and giving us a half-Elvis lip curl?  On second thought, that would just lead straight to disaster.

Disregarding the tedium of Sam & Frodo’s tramp through the woods, this picture delivers on its promise to return us to the carefully imagined, thoroughly detailed world of its predecessor.  It moves the story along, keeps the good guys good and the bad guys bad, and generally represents a great time at the movies.  I’m ready for THE RETURN OF THE KING.

Sweet Smell of Success

SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS, a noirish assault on Walter Winchell starring Tony Curtis and Burt Lancaster, is funny and sad and gripping and unpredictable, right to the very end.  It succeeds on every level.

Tony Curtis plays Sidney Falco, a press agent and general-purpose scumbag who reminded me of a smarter version of NIGHT AND THE CITY’s Harry Fabian.  Falco lives in fear of and subservience to J.J. Hunsecker (Burt Lancaster), the Winchell character.  And if Falco’s a scumbag, Hunsecker’s a flat-out villain.

Whoah.  Wait a minute.  I just figured something out.  I’m done with the “review” part.  It’s a great movie.  See it.  You’ll love it.  There.

Here’s the more interesting thing.  SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS was released in 1957, after Winchell’s career had gone into decline in the wake of the Army-McCarthy hearings.  See, Winchell had abetted Joseph McCarthy and had no problem slapping the “Red” label on those who crossed him.  When McCarthy’s star fell, it left Winchell vulnerable.

Vulnerable to whom?  Perhaps to a man like Clifford Odets, a playwright who had named names before the House Un-American Activities Committee and lived forever after in shame because of it.  Odets, who was called in merely to polish a script that was nearly ready to shoot, spent four months completely reworking it.  He made SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS subtler, tenser, sharper.  He wrote a film that feels like a dagger aimed at the heart of Walter Winchell.

One year later, the weakened Winchell crossed Jack Paar, host of the Tonight Show and the face of television.  Paar destroyed him, forever sealing the ascendancy of the new medium.

I don’t know which is more interesting, SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS or its place in the history of American mass media.  Regardless, there’s no denying that this is a fantastic, fantastic movie.  See it at your earliest opportunity.