Tag: Christopher Walken

‘Jersey Boys’ has wonderful music and an interesting tale

An early moment in the history of the ‘Jersey Boys’

Jersey Boys is a pretty good movie. Therein lies the problem. It is only pretty good. When I enter an auditorium to watch a movie directed by Clint Eastwood, I expect excellence. He rarely disappoints. Given that this is an adaptation of a smash-hit Broadway musical, it stood to reason that he would splash that musical across the big screen with his usual panache. It is a good film and there are many fine aspects to it; and perhaps I’m being unfair by having had such high expectations.

For those who don’t know already, Jersey Boys tells the tale of the Four Seasons, a very successful musical quartet that hit #1 before the Fab Four crossed the Atlantic. Francesco Castelluccio, who changed his name to Frankie Valli (Young), was a young barber by day and singer by night. Tommy DeVito (Piazza), his brother Nicky (Cannizzaro) and Nick Massi (Lomenda) had a trio and DeVito wanted to bring Valli in as their lead singer. DeVito worked for one of the local mob bosses, Gyp DeCarlo (Walken), who’d noticed that Valli has a very talented voice.

After trying hard and getting nowhere, Joe Pesci (Russo, and yes, we’re talking about the Oscar winning actor) brings another very talented musician, Bob Gaudio (Bergen) into the mix. Nicky had left the band and with Guadio, they become the Four Seasons (it happened in real life almost exactly how it is shown in the film). They hook up with producer Bob Crewe (Doyle) and after a sputtering start, the song “Sherry” rockets to the top of the charts. Tommy runs things and the band has successes. There are also problems and there is trouble on the horizon. Frankie Valli’s personal and professional lives do not co-exist well.

John Lloyd Young and Renee Marino in ‘Jersey Boys’

The story is told in a linear format with frequent flashbacks, but also utilized monologues by each of the four main characters, giving their unique perspective on the events as they transpire. The transitions from monologue to events aren’t always seamless, but this is more than outweighed by the stellar musical performance pieces. Clint Eastwood made the choice to record the performances live, not the usual method. The results are most of the movie’s best moments.

The casting of John Lloyd Young was an excellent choice, as he originated the role on Broadway and has the “pipes” to carry it off. The rest of the cast is more than adequate to the task, with Renee Marino having some marvelous moments. Considering that Christopher Walken would be brilliant in anything, even a remake of Plan Nine from Outer Space, it’s no surprise he stands out here.

I have not seen the musical on stage (something I need to rectify) so comparisons are inappropriate. The majority of the artistic license taken with the real events is fine, as the changes from what really took place to what’s shown on screen improve the story. Obviously, the music is spectacular. Definitely worth checking out.

The one omission from the real story of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons that I would have liked to see in the film is his battle with otosclerosis. That’s an abnormal growth in the middle ear and it had robbed him of his ability to hear his own singing during the 1970s. He preserved in spite of this, and eventually surgery restored his hearing by 1980.

June 24, 2014
‘Stand Up Guys’ is a tale of vice and men

Christopher Walken, Alan Arkin and Al Pacino are the ‘Stand Up Guys’

If Stand Up Guys, the new light crime noir that marks Fisher Stevens’ second stab as a feature film director, were a person, it would be a voyeur. This is most certainly a film that likes to watch.

And who would blame him for that when one’s subjects are such mega-ton Oscar winners as Alan Arkin, Al Pacino, and Christopher Walken? Based on a script by Noah Haidle, Guys is so busy watching that it doesn’t stop to give much information away. We hardly know where it takes place, and would it not for references to Viagra, outfits and use of landlines make it so that the film could have easily occurred 30 or 35 years earlier than its modern setting. Pacino plays Val, a thug recently released from prison (how many times has Pacino now played an ex-con? I count roughly 14 billion) after serving a 28-year sentence for the unintended murder of the son of local crime boss Claphands (Mark Margolis, menacing underused). Claphands intends for Val to be killed as revenge for his son by Doc (Walken), Val’s best friend and (literal) partner in crime.

With Doc’s George to Val’s Lenny, the two embark on a day and night on the town, including several trips to a local brothel, to Doc’s favorite diner, a raid on a closed pharmacy, a couple of unplanned trips to a nearby hospital so Julianna Margulies can show up as a nurse, and even a cemetery. This film is more of a due than a trio; Guys is mostly a showpiece for the two actors, with Pacino exercising his frenetic side, although not inappropriately, and Walken in a sadder, more contemplative role that benefits from very careful modulation and restraint. Arkin, whose character, Hirsch, enters and exits the film pretty much exactly as you might predict, takes a (not literal) backseat to his two co-stars. Addison Timlin shines in the small but significant role of a waitress at Doc’s diner. (Which brings to mind a logistical question: how many times in the course of a night can these guys scarf down all that food and coffee?

The thrill of the movie is to sit back and watch these veterans do their thing. It’s a bittersweet victory lap, as age allows them to inject a greater gravitas into every moment but also tinges their scenes with a sense of finality. Decades ago these talented men represented a new guard of vitality and realism in acting. We’re now reminded me that all things, even the most illustrious and door-opening of careers, must come to an end. Guys aches with decay and loneliness, and even Doc, Hirsch, and Val know their days are numbered. Stevens lays on the pathos a bit too thick, though – these flawed guys are so sympathetic and omniscient that they begin to adopt the deity-like qualities we all want to attribute to their portrayers.

And as long as Guys remains full of hero worship, this star vehicle isn’t doing its job. It’s looking backward when it should be moving forward. Haidle’s script includes many moments that wink back to the past, including a joyride in a speeding car and Pacino dancing with a stranger in a bar, both of which call back to Martin Brest’s Scent of a Woman. Guys also loves quoting Rowdy Roddy Piper’s big line from John Carpenter’s They Live. And the film is consumed by tropes involving these randy men getting their rocks off – think Cocoon meets Porky’s.

And after a while, Guys’ jejune humor takes its toll. Pacino’s shamelessness begins to feel, well, shameful, especially as he swallows Viagra by the fistful, not unlike his Tony Montana once dove into a hill of cocaine. 40 years ago we were introduced to a young Pacino as Michael Corleone struggling with a gun. Now he’s popping Viagra to load a very different kind of pistol. Is that how Pacino really wants his career to climax?

February 5, 2013
‘A Late Quartet’ feels a little out of tune

Mark Ivanir, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Catherine Keener and Christopher Walken make music together in ‘A Late Quartet’

Oh what a frustrating movie A Late Quartet turns out to be. What could have been an eye-opening look at a fringe industry and the lives of the talented performers who thrive within it ends up being a by-the-numbers melodrama, despite a sterling cast.

Yaron Zilberman, a documentarian making his feature film debut, has adapted Quartet with Seth Grossman, from his own short story, and though it only focuses on its four titular string players, there are reversals and revelations to spare. Gorgeously shooting a snow-covered upper Manhattan as though it were a travel video, Zilberman looks at what happens when widowed cellist Peter Mitchell (Christopher Walken) is diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease, a debilitating illness sad for anyone but particularly devastating for those whose careers and passions lie in the nimble work of one’s hands (Frederick Elmes was director of photography).

Quartet would cover the winter of everyone’s discontent, however. This movie is not about Peter’s journey but the deleterious effect his diagnosis has on the rest of the Fugue Quartet, an elite group whose other members are younger than Peter and are firmly in the process of creating their own mid-life dramas: Robert (Philip Seymour Hoffman), a second chair violinist, decides that when Peter leaves the group, he should ascend, at least partially to, first chair, alternating with Daniel (Mark Ivanir). This irks Daniel, who complains to viola player Juliette (Catherine Keener, working opposite Hoffman for the third time in eight years), since Juliette is Robert’s wife.

Mark Ivanir, Christopher Walken, Catherine Keener and Philip Seymour Hoffman in ‘A Late Quartet’

The web gets more incestuously tangled as Juliette and Robert’s daughter, Alexandra (Imogen Poots), seduces Daniel. Latent resentment among all four of these characters rise as Peter quietly adjusts to his fate in the film’s background. These formulaic plots, with plenty of backstory force-fed to the viewer via faux-documentary clips and a deluge of expository dialogue, undercut Zilberman’s commentary on the (waning) art of classical music and the need for a quartet to become an unbreakable family, simpatico with one another so as to make the sum of the four instruments a greater whole (Zilberman provides Walken with several monologues delivered to a music class that includes Alexandra about the intricacies of solo performance versus quartet performance to drive home the point.)

Structurally, the filmmaker aims to shape his movie a la Beethoven’s Quartet in C sharp minor (Op. 131), a famous 40-minute string quartet with seven movements that are to be played with no pause, performed by the Brentano String Quartet as the cast pantomimes the playing. But Quartet proves to be repetitive and clunky, thanks to its soapy sidebar plots. Hoffman is sensational when it comes to fleshing out his flawed violinist, though Keener and Ivanir don’t overcome Zilberman’s booby-trapped plot quite as well; Poots fares worse, with stilted line readings and no way of bridging her character’s oddly juvenile motivations.

Walken proves to be the quartet’s key player, on stage and in the film. In addition to subtly portraying the weakening abuse of Parkinson’s, he also steers his portions of the movie away from pathos. Grossman and Zilberman arm him with a particularly moving monologue that’s as classy a “thank you and goodbye” as your likely to hear. When he’s onscreen, Quartet is actually uplifting. It’s when the film’s other characters show up and start careening into each other that the movie starts hitting off notes.

November 9, 2012
‘Seven Psychopaths’ is a little bit psychotic, little bit funny

Colin Farrell, Christopher Walken and Sam-Rockwell in ‘Seven Psychopaths’

The really brief review of the new film from In Bruges writer/director Martin McDonagh, Seven Psychopaths would be: Trust me, go see it.

The not quite so brief review would be: This is a clever, sharp, intriguing film you will thoroughly enjoy. Go see it.

But neither would be fair.

Seven Psychopaths is a large ensemble cast performing at the top of their game, in a story that pokes fun at Hollywood while not having that “insider” feel that some films lampooning the film industry often contain.

“Marty” (Colin Farell) is a screenwriter who drinks too much, mistreats the woman he’s involved with (Abbie Cornish), and has a great title for a screenplay. But aside from the title, Seven Psychopaths, he has little else in terms of ideas or characters. His good friend “Billy” (Sam Rockwell), who is an actor that doesn’t work as a waiter or barista, wants to help. Billy has suggestions of psychopaths that Marty can use in the project and actually wants to co-write the screenplay. That’s an idea that Marty isn’t comfortable with, but he is willing to listen to Billy’s ideas.

Woody Harrelson in ‘Seven Psychopaths’

Billy supports himself with a dognapping business he runs with “Hans” (Christopher Walken). Walken is not focused on business at the moment because his wife “Myra” (Linda Bright Clay) is sick and may be dying. But the business pretty much runs itself. Take a person’s dog when they aren’t looking and hang onto the dog until the owner posts a reward. Then one of them returns the dog and collects the reward.

The problems start when they take the ShihTzu that belongs to “Charlie” (Woody Harrelson), a crime boss with problems. He’s upset with his girlfriend “Angela” (Olga Kurylenko) and orders two of his thugs to kill her. But they are killed themselves by a psychopathic killer known as the “Jack of Diamonds” (because he leaves that card with every one of his victims. Stranger still is that all of his victims are members of crime gangs.

This leads to Charlie and his remaining thugs searching to locate the dognappers and recover his “Bonny”, while Marty and Billy try to flesh out this screenplay idea.

Seven Psychopaths is multi-layered and McDonagh peels those layers back like they were the thinnest sections of an onion. One by one, the layers are revealed beneath one another until all is revealed and the final confrontations take place.

The actors are terrific. Great dialogue and characters with subtext allow them to perform without having to reach over the top to make themselves heard. The story sags in places, and sometimes the dialogue is almost too hip for the room. But those moments are rare enough that they don’t really detract from the experience.

October 16, 2012
‘Dark Horse’ is one animal you may not want to saddle and ride

Selma Blair stars in ‘Dark Horse’

Todd Solondz directed Welcome to the Dollhouse, Happiness and Storytelling among others. Now comes his latest and sadly it doesn’t live up to the films that preceded it. Dark Horse stars Jordan Gelber and Selma Blair, and co-stars Mia Farrow, Christopher Walken, Justin Bartha, Zachary Booth and Aasif Mandvi in a dark, meandering tale.

Gelber plays “Abe” who lives at home, drives a Hummer, works in his father’s real estate business and is mad at just about everyone in his family for things they did or didn’t do for him, and things he feels they did to him. Even though our first encounter with Abe is at a wedding where he’s trying to his on “Miranda” (Blair), he’s nearly impossible to like almost immediately. Worse, any chance we had of his character being redeemed and made likeable disappears rapidly from that point forward.

Abe is a numbers cruncher in his father’s employ and we’re never told exactly why he resents his father and the work that he is supposed to do so much, we’re just shown that he has no desire or intention to do it. “Lori” (Mary Joy) tries to cover for him as much as she can, but when his father “Jackie” (Walken) insists he needs the spreadsheets by Monday, Abe drops an f-bomb and announces he is quitting and moving out.

When he sees his mother “Phyllis” (Farrow) she asks him if he needs money which he denies. She asks where he plans to go, but he’s noncommittal. The only thing he’ll commit to is that he has savings and he’s tired of being mistreated.

Then there is his second encounter with Miranda. When they finally connect, even though they spent little time together at the wedding, Abe proposes marriage. Then he says she should just think about that, and consider going out on a date with him while she’s thinking it over. She needs to discuss it with her ex-boyfriend “Mahmoud” (Mandvi) via Skype and his response, like many things in this film is unexpected.

Turns out that Miranda’s own life is so unfulfilling, that even though she doesn’t find Abe attractive, doesn’t think he would make a good husband and has other issues, she’s so unhappy otherwise that accepting his proposal makes more sense than declining it. Soon her parents are meeting his, and she’s revealing something about herself that Abe might have wanted to know much sooner.

Then we start to see Lori appearing in and out of Abe’s life as advisor, confidant, and we’re not sure if he is really seeing her and talking with her about his future and the choices available to him, or if these sequences are dreams. Later we see more of the characters from his reality in these “unreal” sequences and the line between what is and what isn’t gets too blurred for the audience to follow easily.

There’s a subplot involving Abe’s brother “Richard” (Bartha) who Abe doesn’t have any real relationship with, and with whom he’s been angry with for over ten years. Another involving his cousin “Justin” (Booth) with whom he works and who his father decides to give his job to after another disappointing performance from Abe.

All this intertwines and coalesces into a third act that seems almost incomprehensible, although if you pay close attention, you can follow most of the plot movement. Even the appearance of Mahmoud at a social engagement between Abe and Miranda doesn’t turn out at one might have expected, especially when you see how close the former lovers appear in the presence of her current fiancé.

I got the feeling that parts of Dark Horse were left on the cutting room floor, as the run time for this is only 84 minutes and there are several things that I can’t be specific about without engaging in unwanted spoilers. I’ll leave those to you to try to decipher if you choose to see this film. Sadly there isn’t much to recommend it. Farrow, a brilliant actress at times is woefully underused. Walken who has been terrific in other indies (“Pretty Persuasion” comes immediately to mind) is not at his best. Even Selma Blair, who I love to watch on-screen disappoints with her mostly montone, uni-dimensional character. I understand that was how Miranda was written, but that makes it no less disappointing.

July 29, 2012