Peeper

Not many people like the movie Peeper (1975). Not its director Peter Hyams who was unemployable for three years after its release. Not its two lead actors Michael Caine and Natalie Wood. And certainly not the studio 20th Century Fox who let it sit on the shelf for a year under the original title Fat Chance, only to recut and rename it to the aforementioned Peeper. Well, I like it. While it may not be in the same league as other hard-boiled detective spoofs to come out of the 1970s, like Woody Allen’s Play It Again, Sam (1972), Robert Altman’s The Long Goodbye (1973), or Neil Simon’s The Cheap Detective (1978), it remains a fascinating cinema oddity. I realize that I’m probably in the minority on this and that’s okay, too.

In a clever, self-reflexive bit, the movie opens with a Humphrey Bogart as Sam Spade wannabe walking down a dirty, deserted city alleyway late at night. He proceeds to say the opening credits in an imitation of Bogart’s distinctive voice. I don’t think I’ve ever seen an opening credits sequence like that before or since. Sadly, the rest of Peeper isn’t as clever…or good.

Los Angeles, 1947. Leslie C. Tucker (Caine) is a British private detective trying to make a go of it in America but judging by the pile of bills he spends a night going through things aren’t going too well. One night, he’s visited by a man named Anglich (Michael Constantine) who wants Tucker to find his daughter Anya who he abandoned 29 years ago at an orphanage. The problem is that he’s being hunted by two hitmen from Tampa, Florida where he’s been living for some time. Intrigued, Tucker takes the case.

His first lead is something of a dead end but he does catch a tantalizing glimpse of Ellen Prendergast (Wood), who may or may not be Anya, and flashes him with her silk robe (and not much else underneath). He gets fleeting glimpses of her on the sprawling family estate. Her sister (Kitty Winn) tells him, “If you want her inside she’ll probably rape you,” to which he deadpans, “There’s no rush.” They soon meet properly and their exchange oddly lacks the sexual tension that W.D. Richter’s screenplay is obviously going for but instead it’s like Michael Caine and Natalie Wood are reciting dialogue from their own respective movies and not the one they’re actually in. It all feels a little flat and I don’t know if it’s the writing or the editing but it’s not a good way to start things.

What’s more surprising about the sometimes flat dialogue is that it’s written by Richter who would go on to pen such hilarious, insanely quotable films like Big Trouble in Little China (1986) and Home for the Holidays (1995). I can’t decide if it’s the script’s shortcomings or that Caine and Wood just aren’t delivering their lines correctly. A stylized film noir comedy is not easy to pull off with Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid (1982) being the gold standard.

Tucker has a suspicion that either Ellen or her sister is Anya but can’t be sure. As luck would have it, he runs into the former looking for the same man and instead they find his corpse! Tucker and Ellen also run afoul of two thugs, one of whom is played with imposing idiosyncrasy by none other than eccentric character actor Timothy Carey. While Tucker wrestles with one thug, Ellen smashes a bottle over the head of the other and the perplexed expression she gives afterwards – that was too easy – is priceless.

Caine and Wood play along gamely and their chemistry improves as the movie progresses. He tries to be the tough guy to her femme fatale but they are neither and that’s one of the things being parodied with the cliché archetypes turned on their head. The script, however, doesn’t go far enough with this conceit. Their snappy banter could have had a slightly faster, crisper rhythm to it. Caine starts off playing Tucker a bit like he’s anticipating the neurotic mess he would eventually play in Hannah and Her Sisters (1986) but once his life is in jeopardy the actor veers closer to Get Carter (1971) territory, barking orders and threatening people. Tonally, his performance is a little all over the place. He should have maintained the light touch evident early on throughout the movie.

Filmed in an endless series of gorgeous soft focus shots, Wood looks stunning as always and seems to be having fun playing a sexually suggestive femme fatale with something of an enigmatic air about her. The actress seems to struggle a bit early on with some of the dialogue but her performance gets stronger as the movie progresses and her character’s true motivations are gradually revealed.

It also feels like director Peter Hyams is never allowed to cut loose like he does in Busting (1974), for example. Sure, there are the occasional flourishes, like the prowling Steadicam employed effectively during a chase sequence when Tucker and Ellen are pursued by the two thugs from Tampa. He does try to keep things interesting, like staging a car chase in a traffic jam, but one wonders if the workman-like direction is due more to studio meddling that resulted in the year of it being relegated to limbo.

Producer Irwin Winkler had helped Hyams get his start as a director and offered him a project called Fat Chance, a spoof of Raymond Chandler-type private detective movies. Hyams was a fan of the writer and agreed to do it. Natalie Wood just had a child and turned down lucrative offers to appear in The Towering Inferno (1974) and The Great Gatsby (1974) in favor of Peeper in 1974. She had wanted to work with Caine, one of her favorite actors, and many of her scenes would be shot on the former estate of silent film actor Harold Lloyd, only ten minutes away from her own home, convenient as she was taking care of two children. Having just had a child, Wood went on a strict diet, losing 50 pounds for the role. Director of photography Earl Rath, Jr. remembered, “She was getting a little older, so I used a little softer lens, just to enhance the quality of her face. Every shot, I’d glamorize I’d make her look beautiful, which was not hard to do.”

According to Hyams, Peeper did not preview well and the studio didn’t think it would do well commercially. They sat on it for a year, recut it and changed the title.

If it seems like I’m down on Peeper I don’t mean to be. It does have its own undeniable, low-key charm that I’m sometimes in the mood for late at night when there’s nothing else on. Perhaps I’m more receptive to its uneven rhythms. It’s one of those movies I keep coming back to as I feel like there’s a good movie in there somewhere trying to get out but we’ll probably never see the version Hyams intended as there isn’t enough interest on the studio end who could care less and maybe that’s the way it should be. That way those of us that see the movie it could be can continue to imagine their own version.

SOURCES

“A Conversation with Peter Hyams.” Peeper DVD. 20th Century Fox. 2006.

Finstad, Suzanne. Natasha: The Biography of Natalie Wood. Three Rivers Press. 2002.

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Harris, Warren G. Natalie and R.J.: The Star-Crossed Love Affair with Natalie Wood and Robert Wagner. Doubleday. 1988.

Blood and Wine

Director Bob Rafelson and Jack Nicholson had a number of memorable collaborations in the 1970s (Five Easy Pieces and The King of Marvin Gardens) and worked once together during the 1980s (The Postman Always Rings Twice) and again during the 1990s (Man Trouble). Towards the end of ‘90s, they made a nasty little neo-noir called Blood and Wine (1997). Much like filmmaker Robert Towne, Rafelson is a survivor of the ‘70s still using his reputation from that decade to make modestly budgeted, character-driven films – the kind that established his career in the first place. Blood and Wine is easily the best film from the later part of his career.

Alex Gates (Jack Nicholson) is a wine merchant in a dysfunctional marriage with his wife Suzanne (Judy Davis) and her slacker son, Jason (Stephen Dorff). He’s also got a sexy mistress named Gabriela (Jennifer Lopez) on the side and not above stealing from some of his high-end customers. In fact, he’s casing one house in particular with a diamond necklace worth a million dollars. His partner-in-crime is a low-life Brit named Victor (Michael Caine).

From the opening credits, Rafelson establishes the harshness of this world as Jason and his friend Henry (Harold Perrineau Jr.) catch and kill a shark on the beach for money. The almost nonchalant way that Jason puts the animal out of its misery speaks volumes about the rules that govern this world. Jason still lives with his parents who seem to be married but the magic is clearly long gone. Suzanne’s first line spoken to Alex says it all: “Nice to have you home, just for the novelty.” He offers up an excuse and she responds sarcastically. Suzanne probably has a pretty good idea of what he’s really been up to but is too tired to care or do anything about it. Judy Davis does a nice job of conveying her character’s world-weariness, like when she responds to his promise, “Things are gonna turn around,” with, “That’s your theme song.” They’re a couple clearly going through the motions.

Rafelson masterfully introduces us to all the characters and establishes their relationships with one another in the first 20 minutes. Then, he lets the various plot developments play out. As with most noirs, the fun is anticipating who will double-cross who as no one can be trusted because they all have their own agenda that doesn’t fully reveal itself until the film’s climactic moments. It’s a shell game of sorts as we figure out who’s playing whom and why. For example, Gabriela is fired from her nanny job and gets involved with Jason. Is she being sincere or is she playing an angle?

This is Jack Nicholson in one of his less showier roles, as if hooking back up with his old friend brought the character actor out in him again. It’s a meaty role that eschews the charismatic movie star parts he does in films like As Good As It Gets (1997), for much darker material. Alex is driven by greed and it gradually consumes him and Nicholson does a good job of conveying the effect it has over his character. Alex has his own wine store but business must not be too good as he’s broke. He may wear nice suits and have his own business but deep down he’s a simple thief, casing the safe of one of his wealthy clients and having an affair with their beautiful nanny who may or may not be in on the job. However, Alex is an amateur, which is why he’s in league with Victor, who, despite his crappy health, is a lethal, experienced criminal. Like many doomed noir protagonists, Alex dreams big – taking his cut of the job and running off with Gabriela to live a fabulous life. The reality is that at home his wife is still coping with an injury and is addicted to painkillers.

Michael Caine is excellent as a really nasty piece of work – an ex-convict lacking the social skills that Alex’s calculating, smooth operator has. Victor is a chain-smoker even though he’s one coughing fit away from keeling over on the spot. He is driven by his lack of time. He knows that he’s dying and Caine does a great job of conveying his character’s increasing desperation. With his painted on black hair and moustache, the veteran actor plays a world-class sleazoid and manages to all but steal the film away from Nicholson.

Along with Backbeat (1994), Blood and Wine is easily the best thing Stephen Dorff has done in a diverse if not uneven career. He plays the stepson who helps out with his stepfather’s business even though he’d rather spend his time fishing, which is his true passion. At first, Jason seems like a lazy twentysomething but as the film progresses, additional layers of his character are revealed and like everyone else, there is more to him than there seems. He is the only true innocent in the film but he soon gets caught up in Alex’s dirty dealings after his stepfather and mother have an argument that turns violent. The arc of his character is a fascinating one as he goes from an idealistic dreamer to a vengeful son.

Watching Blood and Wine is a sober reminder of just how interesting Jennifer Lopez was to watch on-screen before she started doing an endless stream of romantic comedies. She is quite good as a Cuban immigrant who risked her life to leave her native country and start a better life in the United States. She will do anything to stay. Lopez plays the role of vulnerable girl but she’s really a femme fatale, manipulating the men to get what she wants.

Jack Nicholson and Bob Rafelson had been trying to get Blood and Wine made since 1992 but the studios weren’t interested in a downbeat thriller filled with amoral, scheming characters. Rafelson realized that he would have to go the independent route. He managed to secure a modest, $11 million budget but it soon doubled when he persuaded Nicholson to come back on board – with his usual fee, natch. However, the actor wasn’t just in it for the money. Making Blood and Wine offered him a chance to reunite with Rafelson, whom he had made several films together, but also it was a change of pace from studio films like Mars Attacks! (1996). Rafelson said at the time, “I don’t know if he gets that many opportunities to play roles that challenge him.”

Blood and Wine received mostly positive reviews from critics. Roger Ebert gave it three-and-a-half out of four stars and praised Michael Caine’s performance: “Here he is convincing and sardonically amusing as a wreck of a man who chain-smokes, coughs, spits up blood and still goes through the rituals of a jewel thief because that is who he is.” Entertainment Weekly gave the film a “B-“ rating and Lisa Schwarzbaum wrote, “In fact, the real filial tenderness takes place between Nicholson and Caine. The two old curtain chewers display a real affection for one another as buddies linked as fellow losers, even if one is a 'respectable’ businessman and the other a lowlife who coughs up blood.” In his review for the Toronto Star, Peter Howell wrote, “Blood and Wine is hit-and-miss, and occasionally slips into rote drama. But other times, it cuts to the bone of human desires and fears.” The Globe and Mail’s Liam Lacey wrote, “Nowadays, every noir caper film seems to be a campy pastiche of references, but Rafelson and Nicholson get back to dirty basics of the genre: a whole universe of greed, lust and pain.”

In his review for The New York Times, Stephen Holden wrote, “And with its bleary humid atmosphere that evokes the march of time as a procession of tipsy tequila sunsets, it is wonderful at sustaining a mood of end-of-the-road tropical dissipation.” However, the Washington Post’s Desson Howe wrote, “Blood and Wine has neither the red cells nor the vintage to make the experience potent enough.” In his review for USA Today, Mike Clark wrote, “The movie’s own payoff is compelling enough, but the project has a weightless feel that limits involvement.”

Caine and Nicholson make a fun team to watch as the former sleazes his way through Blood and Wine with his greasy black hair and dry sense of humor that plays well off of the latter’s increasingly desperate schemer. Alex is an amateur crook who thinks he’s a professional while Victor looks like an amateur but is a pro. As the film progresses, Alex takes more damage and Victor’s health gets increasingly worse. They’re quite a broken-down pair of crooks that banter back and forth like an old married couple. Rafelson does not forget that ultimately this film is driven by its characters and lets us get to know them and their motivations so that we are personally involved in their respective fates. By the end of Blood and Wine plenty of the former rather than the latter has been spilled. This film has been seen as the conclusion to an informal trilogy of films about the decay of American values and an examination of troubled families that began with Five Easy Pieces (1970) and The King of Marvin Gardens (1972). Like those films, Blood and Wine features a deeply dysfunctional family only this time one of its members is driven to extreme behavior for money. Rafelson shows how Alex’s actions have ramifications, affecting those around him, tainting everything with awful results.

SOURCES

Howell, Peter. “Everything Old is New Again.” Toronto Star. February 19, 1997.

Merzer, Martin. “Days of Wine and No Poses.” Sunday Telegraph. February 9, 1997.

Inception

This review first appeared on Edward Copeland's blog earlier today. I've given it a few tweaks and a polish here and there.

Ten years in the making, Inception (2010) is the culmination of Christopher Nolan’s career to date. It mixes the ingenious plot twists of his independent film darling Memento (2000) with the epic scale of his Hollywood blockbuster The Dark Knight (2008). His new film takes the heist genre to the next level by fusing it with the science fiction genre as a group of corporate raiders steal ideas by entering the dreams of their targets – think Dreamscape (1984) meets The Matrix (1999) as if made by Michael Mann. While Nolan and his films certainly wear their respective influences on their sleeve – and this one is no different (2001: A Space Odyssey, Blade Runner, Heat, The Matrix) – there is still enough of his own thematic preoccupations to make Inception distinctly his own. This film continues Nolan’s fascination with the blurring of artifice with reality. With Inception, we are constantly questioning what is real right down to the last enigmatic image.


Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his team extract thoughts of value from people as they dream. However, during his jobs, he is visited by his deceased wife Mal (Marion Cotillard), a beautiful femme fatale character that serves as an increasingly dangerous distraction from the task at hand. The film’s opening sequence does an excellent job establishing how Cobb and his team extract information from the dream of Saito (Ken Watanabe), a Japanese businessman, in a visually arresting sequence. He catches up with Cobb in the real world and offers him a new deal: plant an idea in Robert Fischer’s (Cillian Murphy) mind that will help break-up his father’s vast empire before it becomes too powerful, and do it in a way so that it seems like Fischer thought of it for it to work. This is something that has only been done once before and Cobb was the person that pulled it off but can he do it again? In exchange for completing the job, Saito will make the necessary arrangements so that Cobb can return home to the United States where his children live but where he is also wanted by the authorities in connection with his wife’s death. So, Cobb recruits a literal dream team of experts to help him pull off the most challenging job of his career.

Inception delves into all kinds of aspects of dreams as evident in a scene early on where Cobb explains how they work, how to design and then navigate them. While there is a lot of exposition dialogue to absorb during these scenes, Nolan also keeps things visually interesting at the same time. This is arguably the most cerebral part of the film as he explores all sorts of intriguing concepts and sets up the rules for what we’ll experience later on – pretty heady stuff for a Hollywood blockbuster. And when he isn’t examining fascinating ideas, he’s orchestrating exciting and intense action sequences. There’s an incredible sequence where Nolan juggles three different action sequences operating on three different levels of dreams that are all impressively staged while also a marvel of cross-cutting editing. He anchors Inception with the character of Cobb and his desire to return home to his children while also dealing with the death of his wife. It gives the film an emotional weight so that we care about what happens to him. It also raises the stakes on the Fischer job.

Cobb continues Nolan’s interest in tortured protagonists. With Memento, Leonard Shelby tries to figure out who murdered his wife while operating with no short-term memory. Insomnia (2002) featured a cop with a checkered past trying to solve a murder on very little sleep. The Batman films focus on a costumed vigilante that wages war on criminals as a way of dealing with the guilt of witnessing his parents being murdered when he was a child. With The Prestige (2006), magician Robert Angier is tormented by the death of his wife and an all-consuming passion to outdo a rival illusionist. Inception’s Cobb also has a checkered past and is haunted by the death of loved one. Leonardo DiCaprio delivers what may be his finest performance to date, playing a complex, and layered character with a rich emotional life. Cobb must come to terms with what happened to his wife and his culpability in what happened to her. DiCaprio conveys an emotional range that he has not tapped into to this degree before. There’s a captivating tragic dimension to Cobb that the actor does an excellent job of expressing so that we become invested in the dramatic arc of his character.

Nolan populates Inception with a stellar cast to support DiCaprio. The indie film world is represented by the likes of Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Tom Hardy while also drawing from international cinema with Ken Watanabe and Cillian Murphy. Gordon-Levitt and Hardy, in particular, are stand-outs and their banter provides several moments of enjoyable levity during the course of this intense, engrossing film. And it wouldn’t be a Nolan film without his good luck charm, Michael Caine, making an appearance. As he has done in the past, Nolan plucks a once dominant actor from the 1980s, now languishing in relative obscurity – think Rutger Hauer in Batman Begins (2005) or Eric Roberts in The Dark Knight – and gives them a high-profile role. Inception gives Tom Berenger some well-deserved mainstream exposure after languishing in direct-to-video hell, reminding everyone what a good actor he can be with the right material.

Regardless if whether you like Inception or not, you’ve got to admire Nolan for making a film that is not a remake, a reboot, a sequel or an adaptation of an existing work. It is an ideal blend of art house sensibilities, with its weighty themes, and commercial conventions, like exciting action sequences. Capitalizing on the massive success of The Dark Knight, Nolan has wisely used his clout to push through his most personal and ambitious film to date. With Inception, he has created a world on a scale that he’s never attempted before and been able to realize some truly astonishing visuals, like gravity-defying fight scenes and having characters encounter a location straight out of the mind of M.C. Escher. It has been said that the power of cinema is the ability to transport you to another world and to dream with our eyes open. Inception does this. Nolan has created a cinematic anomaly: a summer blockbuster film with a brain.

Devin Faraci over at CHUD offers some great analysis and one of the best theories on what the film means. Over at Cinema Blend is a great visual guide that breaks down the various dream levels in the film. New York magazine has a fantastic interview with one of the film's stars and he offers some fascinating insights into the meanings of the film. Sam Adams, over at Salon.com has a great, in-depth look at the film that lays it all out in incredible detail. Finally, Kristin Thompson and David Bordwell offer a fantastic, in-depth analysis of how Inception works stylistically on their blog Observations on film art.
 
Feel free to offer your observations, opinions, insights and theories on Inception in the comments section below.

Christopher Nolan Blogothon: Batman Begins

BLOGGER'S NOTE: This post is part of the Christopher Nolan Blogothon over at the Things That Don't Suck blog.

The fact that it took eight years for a new Batman film to be released illustrates how freaked out the studio was over the commercial and critical failure of Batman and Robin (1997). Warner Brothers gave the franchise a much needed rest while they quietly looked for someone to reboot it. At first, it looked like Darren Aronofsky and Frank Miller might be the ones to do it but the studio didn’t like their vision of the character. Then came screenwriter David S. Goyer and then up-and-coming director Christopher Nolan who decided to return the Dark Knight back to his roots. They wanted to explore what motivated Bruce Wayne to dress up like a giant bat and wage war on the criminals of Gotham City. By all accounts, their effort, fittingly entitled Batman Begins (2005), was a resounding success. The critics loved it and audiences flocked to the theaters to see it. So, what did they do right?


The casting. While anyone can disappear into the bat suit and look scary it’s playing Bruce Wayne that is the real challenge. To date, only Michael Keaton has pulled it off because he brought a complexity and a refreshing unpredictability to the role. Christian Bale, who has proven that he’s got considerable acting chops with an impressive resume, perfectly captures the essence of the tortured billionaire. Also gone are the obvious casting of marquee names like Jim Carrey and Arnold Schwarzenegger in favor of reliable character actors like Gary Oldman, Cillian Murphy and Rutger Hauer. They bring sincerity and just the right amount of believability to their roles. The only weak bit of casting is Katie Holmes as Rachel Dawes, Bruce’s childhood friend. She’s just not believable as a tough prosecutor who works for the District Attorney. Holmes is also too lightweight of an actress and is unable to bring the gravitas needed for the role.

The story. Goyer and Nolan remain true to the spirit of Batman’s origins as depicted by Bob Kane and Bill Finger, right down to how Bruce’s parents are killed and how this torments him throughout his life. Their death will provide the motivation for what he will become and the filmmakers never lose sight of this. They understand that it is Bruce’s single-minded obsession with fighting crime and keeping the darkness at bay is what motivates him to become Batman and Bale embodies his character’s inner turmoil perfectly. The first half of the film is devoted to Bruce’s transformation into Batman and the last half sees him defend Gotham City against a plot to poison the city with a deadly psychotropic drug. And for good measure, they also throw in the threat of local mobsters and the wild card bad guy known as the Scarecrow (Cillian Murphy). The screenplay is smart and well-written, hitting all the right emotional notes and thankfully keeping the cheesy one-liners down to a minimum.

Perhaps the most fascinating aspect of Batman Begins is the League of Shdows, a secret society that trains Bruce and gives him the physical skills to fight crime. However, their overtly fascist philosophy repulses Bruce who believes that he can’t be completely ruthless when it comes to fighting criminals. Compassion is what separates him from them. It’s a key point in showing that amidst the darkness lies a spark of idealism in Bruce. He truly believes that Gotham can be saved from the criminals that wish to corrupt it from within.

The tone. The campiness of the Joel Schumacher films is gone, replaced by a darker, brooding vibe. Nolan brings an art house sensibility to a big budget superhero film which gives it more substance. He treats the source material with the respect that it deserves. Even more interestingly, he incorporates elements from the horror film genre. Early on, when Bruce Wayne as a young boy accidentally discovers what will become the Batcave, Nolan imagines the entrance as dark and foreboding, decorated with dangerous, jagged rocks. Then, many bats come flying right at the frightened Bruce. Meanwhile, the Scarecrow uses a hallucingenetic drug to induce nightmarish visions in his victims.

One of the reasons Batman Begins works so well is the choices Nolan makes, like sticking close to Batman’s origins in the comic book and filling in the gaps that the comics had created. Nolan and Goyer worked closely with D.C. Comics, picking and choosing aspects from various issues during Batman’s long run. For example, Nolan’s depiction of James Gordon (Gary Oldman) was influenced by Frank Miller’s Batman: Year One. Like in that comic, we meet Gordon early in his career as an honest police sergeant surrounded by corruption. Gary Oldman even looks quite similar to the way David Mazzucchelli draws him in Year One. Also, gang boss Carmine Falcone (Tom Wilkinson) is taken from this comic. Batman Begins’ primary villain is Ra’s al Ghul (Ken Watanabe) and his League of Assassins (League of Shadows in the film) is the creation of writer Denny O’Neil and artist Neal Adams. They returned Batman to his darker, grittier roots in the 1970s.

One of the main themes of Batman Begins is the power of fear. Bruce must overcome his before he can truly understand its nature and then bask in the fear of others. He learns to embrace the darkness and understand the nature of evil so that he will be better equipped to fight it. After the campy Joel Schumacher era, it is nice to see Batman return his roots. Nolan’s film even manages to surpasses Tim Burton’s first one. While Burton certainly got the look of Batman’s world and even understood the character’s tortured psyche, he injected moments of silliness that took one out of the film (i.e. the Joker shooting down Batman’s plane with a handgun?!). Nolan does not make this same mistake and created an excellent comic book adaptation that deserves to be ranked alongside other superior examples of the genre. What’s even more incredible is that he went on to top this film with the much superior sequel, The Dark Knight (2008).

For a more in-depth analysis of this film, check out Peter Sanderson's fascinating, exhaustive essay over at Comics in Context.