Watching Movies 11/23

Documentary about Ms. magazine done in three parts by three different directors. The first two parts recount the Ms. story well, but the third part feels like a different film with its focus on feminism's battle with pornography (that's surprisingly not all that interesting). Despite the unconventional approach, it's a pretty conventional doc. 

After a slow start it becomes an effective little twisty thriller doing a high concept on a small budget, which is a great study for wannabe filmmakers out there. I certainly wasn't able to follow everything, but I felt assured the writer/directors had it all worked out, even if it doesn't ultimately add up to much. The actors do a fine job, but it's not helped by the annoying handheld camera throughout.

Lesbian romance in a lovely Nevada setting that's clearly adapted from a novel because there's so much internalized emotions and underdeveloped secondary characters that you have to be clued into their mindset to respond deeply to it. Some kind of plot or subplot might have helped too, and they failed at the 1950s setting.

I thought Jim Jarmusch made movies about cool people, but the lead in this was a complete asshole. I didn't make it past 15 minutes. 

Scorsese clearly modeled Raging Bull on this biopic of Rocky Graziano. Paul Newman is convincing as a boxer, but he's not convincing as a dumb palooka. It's a showy, Brando-esque performance, but nobody knew that back then since this was Newman's breakout role, replacing the deceased James Dean. Age is an issue with a biopic that covers decades. Newman's too old to play the teen hoodlum, then they puff his face up with prosthetics to make him look older, and his mother is only six years older than him (a great performance by Eileen Heckart). Despite all that, it's an engaging and fast-paced drama in three distinct movements. Robert Wise directs the fight scenes very matter-of-factly until the final bout where he puts together a masterful montage. Look for Steve McQueen and (a very young) Veronica Cartwright in bit roles. The DVD offers a commentary by Robert Loggia, Paul Newman, Robert Wise, Peter Schickel, and Martin Scorsese, but despite the five speakers, there are still big stretches of silence. Scorsese offers very little, Schickel can barely get words out, and Newman merely pops in on a phone call for a couple of minutes.

Last week I watched a Basil Dearden soap opera set in an airport (Out of the Clouds) and this was the same thing but set in a boxing arena. This one worked great though because the setting is more confined, the climactic drama of the boxing bouts, and it has a delightfully snappy script with great humor and colorful characters adapted from a stageplay in classic Ealing studios style. It's a big ensemble cast, something Dearden does well, telling the story of six boxers. The focus is less on the fights (we don't even see the first one) and more on the behind-the-scenes operation of the arena, where we get to know the boxers and their drama in the locker room.