HUSBANDS AND WIVES

Mia Farrow

HUSBANDS AND WIVES (1992). Written and directed by Woody Allen.

"You use sex to express every emotion except love."

Jack (Sydney Pollack) and his wife. Sally (Judy Davis of My Brilliant Career), are long-time friends of Gabe Roth (Woody Allen) and his wife, Judy (Mia Farrow). The Roths are startled and dismayed when Jack and Sally announce that they're splitting up, but they assure them that "it's perfectly okay." However, it turns out to be not so okay when Sally discovers that Jack has been having an affair with the much-younger Samantha (Lysette Anthony of the reboot of Dark Shadows). Sally starts seeing Judy's co-worker Michael (Liam Neeson of The Other Man) while Gabe finds himself drawn to his young, admiring student, Rain (Juliette Lewis), and Judy has her own attraction to Michael. Can any of these people ever find happiness? Husbands and Wives begins quite well but suffers from a more contrived second half, which may have been influenced by the true-life events of the highly publicized Woody-Mia break up at the time. Otherwise, as usual, the picture is entertaining, very well-acted by all (with high marks to Davis, Anthony, and Lewis, in particular), and has some interesting observations and intelligent dialogue. Once again we have Allen showing off almost in fetishistic fashion his alleged appeal to younger and much more attractive females (Soon-Yi Previn notwithstanding); yes, sometimes the "yuck" factor gets in the way. However, one of the best scenes has Rain telling Gabe what she thinks of his new unpublished novel, and what it says about his attitude toward women, in a taxi. The shaky hand-held camera shots can be distracting.

Verdict: Not bad, not great, but never uninteresting. **12.  

ROUND-UP OF NEW AND RECENT FILMS PART 2

Here's my second round up of new and recent films with reviews-in-brief:

Don't Look Down (aka Wes Craven Presents Don't Look Down/1998 telefilm.) Director: Larry Shaw. A woman (Megan Ward) whose sister died in a terrible fall joins a group of acrophobes to see if she can get over her terror of heights. One by one members of the group start getting murdered. Don't Look Down has a great premise, lots of suspense, and is well-acted by an interesting supporting cast. Billy Burke is also fine as the heroine's supportive husband. ***.

Dead Tone (2007). Director: Brian Hooks and Dean Taylor. Hardly a cliche goes unrecorded in this late slasher movie where a madman with an ax is on the loose at a party in a mansion where the guests are mostly unpleasant and obnoxious, including a host of black stereotypes and one ludicrously caricatured gay man, who play a cruel phone game as if they were eight years old. The movie is half over before it gets going, and then there's plenty of decently-staged if unexceptional gore and action. There are lots of loose ends but an interesting resolution and a final bit that sort of rips off the ending of Night of the Living Dead. Whatever its flaws -- and there are many -- Dead Tone has some interesting elements to it, and a notable performance by Wil Horneff. **1/2.

1408 (2007). Director Mikael Hafstrom. John Cusack plays a man who debunks the supernatural but comes up squarely against it in a haunted hotel room. Cusack seems to have abandoned his wife after their daughter died. The movie features the usual standard horror conventions, and is well-done and well-acted on that level. But the sappy religiosity of the ending is rather off-putting. Based on a story by Stephen King. **1/2.

Unknown (2011). Director: Jaume Collet-Serra. Liam Neeson stars as a doctor whose identity is seemingly stolen from him. An interesting premise basically turns into a Liam Neeson Action Movie, but is okay on that level. However, the ending is so morally bankrupt as to be appalling. **1/2.

Closed Circuit (2013). Director: John Crowley. In London a pair of former lovers (Eric Bana; Rebecca Hall) work to defend an accused terrorist against much disapproval and opposition, and discover there may be much more to the man than meets the eye. You'd like to be both outraged and moved by this story of a monstrous cover-up, but the movie is so pedestrian on virtually every level, with such over-familiar and cliched elements, that it hardly works at all. **.

Solo (2013). Writer/director: Isaac Cravit. A young woman is hired as a camp counselor and is told that she must spend two days alone on an island as preparation. Even if you buy this premise, the movie doesn't amount to much. Naturally some strange things happen on the island, but nothing you haven't seen many times before. This comes off like a polished student film that probably should have never been released. **. 

Careful What You Wish For (2015). Director: Elizabeth Allen Rosenbaum. A teenage boy (Nick Jonas) enters into an affair with a married older woman (Isabel Lucas) but when someone turns up dead both the local sheriff (Paul Sorvino) and an insurance investigator (Kandyse McClure) have their suspicions. Chris Frisina's screenplay is an unoriginal mass of cliches, including a somewhat anti-LGBT revelation (however unintended). The final twist has been done before more than once. The film isn't boring, the acting is good, but Rosenbaum's direction betrays no skill at all with the thriller/suspense genre. **.

Harbinger Down (2015). Writer/director: Alec Gillis. Lance Henriksen and the crew of his ship discover the remains of a Soviet moon capsule whose dead passenger has been infected by a strange mutated species. Before you can say The Thing or Alien, the creature bursts out and starts infecting the others. Henriksen gives a good performance, the special effects are excellent, but the movie is staggeringly unoriginal, and there's absolutely no flair to the direction. **.

And Then There Were None (2015). Director: Craig Vivieros. This three-part television adaptation of the venerable Agatha Christie novel -- the most recent of several -- adds some interesting facets to the story, turns one character into a nasty self-hating lesbian, features a tiresome sex scene, and despite its grimness almost becomes comical at times. The pace is slow and the direction unimaginative, but it manages to hold the attention due to the situations if nothing else. Charles Dance is a stand-out in a rather good cast, and it has an excellent finale. ***.

Don't Breathe. (2016). Director: Fede Alvarez. Three amoral young people who break into the home of a blind man hoping he keeps all of his cash in his home (!) get more than they bargained for when they discover he's more formidable than they realized. Entertaining enough, but hardly "the greatest horror movie in fifty years," as one person claimed. **1/2.

Star Trek Beyond (2016). Director: Justin Lin. The third in the alternate timeline Star Trek movies has the Enterprise trying to rescue an alien crew by entering an uncharted Nebula and encountering a bad guy who isn't at all interesting until the film's final minutes. The story is weak, script mediocre, and the action not always well-orchestrated, but it does have a very exciting climax. I had to go back and check out the scene where it is revealed that Sulu has a husband, as it's over so quickly many people missed it. Apparently some viewers, including George Takei, were upset that Sulu was made gay, but if Spock and Lt. Uhura are lovers in this version, why can't Sulu be gay? Anyway, if the movie had been better this aspect may not have gotten so much attention. **1/2.

And special mention to:

Stolen Lives (aka Stolen/2009). Director: Anders Anderson. Detective Tom Adkins (Jon Hamm of Mad Men), still searching for his little boy who disappeared some years before, finds the remains of another child who died decades earlier and investigates. A parallel story told in flashback deals with that dead little boy and his father (Josh Lucas) and the heartbreak and guilt that he has to endure. Both stories come together at the end. Beautifully acted by Hamm, Lucas, James Van Der Beek and the rest of an excellent cast, this is difficult to sit through at times as the pain of the characters is so wrenchingly depicted, but it's still a worthwhile journey through an agonizing landscape. ***1/2.

THE HOUSE OF REDGRAVE: THE LIVES OF A THEATRICAL DYNASTY

THE HOUSE OF REDGRAVE: The Lives of a Theatrical Dynasty. Tim Adler. London: Aurum Press; 2012.

Despite the title, this book is essentially a biography of the late Tony Richardson, the British film director who was married to Vanessa Redgrave and was the father of the late Natasha Richardson, who died when she was married to actor Liam Neeson (The Other Man). Apparently the book's publisher thought that Richardson's name wouldn't sell a book, so this was re-imagined as a book on all of the Redgraves, which it isn't, even though there are sections on Vanesssa, her brother Colin, and her daughters late in the book; most of the text covers the life and career of Tony Richardson (The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner; Tom Jones), who brought a stark reality to British theater and cinema that had been missing before. Adler looks at the nutty brother and sister duo of Vanessa and Colin (the latter of whom is largely unknown in the U.S.), both of whom devoted more attention to radical politics than to their own children. Lynn Redgrave, despite a highly successful career, gets short shrift except for passages on her discovering that her husband was the actual father of her grandchild and the resulting scandal, and her death from cancer. Richardson is portrayed as a gifted narcissist who could be both generous and loved, nasty and hated, and was decidedly confused and uptight about his sexuality. Adler doesn't seem that comfortable or up-to-date when writing about Redgrave's and Tony Richardson's homosexuality, and some passages might be considered borderline homophobic and decidedly dated. However, the book is a good read and generally well-done if you're looking for a tome on Richardson and his circle. For a book that's actually about Michael Redgrave and his family, see Donald Spoto's The Redgraves: A Family Epic.

Verdict: Quick and entertaining read, albeit flawed. ***.

WRATH OF THE TITANS

Sam Worthington as Perseus

WRATH OF THE TITANS (2012). Director: Jonathan Liebesman.

Some years after the events of Clash of the Titans, demi-god Perseus (Sam Worthington) learns that his father, Zeus (Liam Neeson), has been abducted to the underworld as part of a war with the older gods, the Titans. The gods are losing their power because humans have stopped praying to them. Other players in this mythological drama include Hades (Ralph Fiennes), Ares (Edgar Ramirez), Andromeda (Rosamund Pike) and Perseus' cousin, Agenor (Toby Kebbell). If you're looking for an entertaining, Ray Harryhausen-type mythological spectacle, look elsewhere, for Wrath of the Titans is fairly tedious and un-involving for most of its length. To be fair, there are some good moments, especially a scene in a deep forest filled with giant cyclopes, a battle with two-headed chimeras, the giant fiery Kronos, and the scenes of Perseus flying around on winged horse Pegasus. There's also a clever sequence in which Perseus and company enter the underworld Tartarus and discover that parts of it move around swiftly as if it were a well-oiled Rube Goldberg machine. There is some impressive scenic design and good FX work, although the photography is cluttered and poorly composed, and the musical score adds up to nothing. The actors do the best they can under the circumstances. Worthington looked a lot better with close-cropped hair than he does with the curly mop he affects in this.

Verdict: I'd say this was a big disappointment, but based on the first film I wasn't expecting much ... **1/2. 

THE BOUNTY

Mel Gibson and Anthony Hopkins

THE BOUNTY (1984). Director: Roger Donaldson.

Although it is based on the same real-life events as the 1935 Mutiny on the Bounty, this version is in some ways a very different animal. The picture begins with Bligh's trial and then flashes back to the story of the mutiny. Unlike Charles Laughton's portrayal in the original film, this film's Bligh, as played by Anthony Hopkins, has a great deal of charm, and hardly comes off like the utterly cruel martinet essayed by Laughton-- in fact, we see no particular "cruelties" at all until the second half when they seem more like the rough justice of the period. On the trip to Tahiti, Bligh risks the ship and its crew in his bid to circumnavigate the globe and go through the stormy seas of Cape Horn. His decision to try again on the trip back is one of the things that leads to the mutiny [although this is not supposed to be historically accurate]. The book this is based on, Captain Bligh and Mr. Christian, posits the completely unsubstantiated if fascinating theory that Bligh and Christian had been lovers, and the former objected to the latter's impregnating and marrying a Tahitian lass, but while a few scenes barely hint at this it goes unexplored [probably to the disappointment --or relief -- of the homophobic Gibson]. Hopkins is quite good, but he can't compare to the more ferocious and mesmerizing Laughton. Gibson is okay, although one could argue that he displays sullen looks that pass for acting; he has his moments, though. Edward Fox, Laurence Olivier, Daniel Day-Lewis, and especially Liam Neeson are notable in the supporting cast. The film is beautifully photographed by Arthur Ibbetson; Vangelis' plastic musical background is occasionally pleasant but far from a score by Steiner, Korngold or the like.

Verdict: Good to look at and reasonably entertaining. ***.

THE OTHER MAN

THE OTHER MAN (2008). Director/screenwriter: Richard Eyre.

"Losers are brilliant at making things pretty."

Peter (Liam Neeson) is convinced that his wife Lisa (Laura Linney) is having an affair, so he goes to Milan to confront the other party, an Italian man named Ralph (Antonio Banderas). Meanwhile Peter's daughter Abigail (Romola Garai) tracks him down and thinks he should just come home -- you wonder why she seems to treat the matter so casually. The Other Man plays fast and loose with time so that you won't see the final twist coming, but the main problem with this male variation of wife-meets-mistress is that the characterizations are insufficient. You want to like it better but Eyre doesn't make it easy. The acting is professional, acceptable, but one senses there's not really enough meat for the cast to chew on.

Verdict: A little bit different but ultimately routine. **1/2.

LOVE, ACTUALLY

LOVE, ACTUALLY (2004). Writer/Director: Richard Curtis.

Curtis wrote the screenplay for the more successful (if unspectacular) Four Weddings and a Funeral; directing his own screenplay this time he's much too self-indulgent, with no one to rein him in. There have been many fine films over the years that mix a variety of characters and try somehow to pull them all together, but despite some memorable moments of charm and humor this one doesn't quite work. Some of the interlocking story lines include a widower (Liam Neeson) who encourages his very young stepson to pursue the girl of his dreams; a new prime minister (Hugh Grant) who has a personal assistant removed from his office because he's simply too attracted to her; and a married woman, Grant's sister (Emma Thompson), who discovers that her husband is falling for a woman at his office; and so on. There's also an aging rock star who has one last hit and realizes the only person he really loves (platonically) is his obese manager; and a handsome young man at a wedding who is obsessed not with the groom, as we're sort of led to believe, but with the very lovely bride. (Although Curtis included a long-term gay couple in Funeral, in this picture they are conspicuous by their total absence.) Curtis was obviously attempting a labor of love [pun intended], making a film that illustrates the point that there's an awful lot of love in the world despite all the ugliness in the headlines, but some of his ideas should have been jettisoned before they left the printed page. The bit with two porn actors who fall for each other never quite jells, and the sub-plot about the frustrated London lad who finally gets laid in America is handled in a ridiculous “frat boy” fashion. Neeson encouraging his eleven-year-old son to dash past airport security just so he can say good-bye to a little girl he's never even spoken to before borders on the utterly ludicrous – and dumb. Some viewers will suspend disbelief and enjoy this movie thoroughly, but a more thoughtful, if equally romantic, viewer may find that the overlong film offers much less “love” than it ought to.

Verdict: It will hold your attention but you won't necessarily be happy that you sat through it. **.