Not to put too fine a point on it, this was a good week for tits. There’s simply no other way to express it; two of the three films I watched this week were chock-full of nipples, and one left me down-right stunned. It was also a decent week for plot and characters. Despite the eye-candy, however, I noticed nothing groundbreakingly intense cinematographically speaking. Ah well. You can’t win all the time.
Walk the Line
I was looking forward to this for quite a while, and while I was disappointed, it was a very solid flick. Joaquin Phoenix, brother of long-dead River, gives a pretty good portrayal of Johnny Cash. The other main character in the movie is June Carter, played by Reese Witherspoon, who was absolutely perfect for the role–if the perfect way to play June Carter is to take the chick from Legally Blonde and give her a Southern accent, anyways (it is).
She managed to be funny and caricatured, in the way that most country-comics have always been in my experience, and not be irritating as hell at the same time. I kind of hope that June was a little less her on-stage persona when she wasn’t on stage, but for all I know, she really was that overly-animated in real life.
Anyway, to move on: the important thing about any movie that’s a musician’s biopic is the music itself. There are two questions one must ask: “Did they get the actor portraying the artist to re-record the music?” and if so, “Does it suck?” Unfortunately, the answer in this case is very close to being “Yes” to both. Phoenix does a decent job portraying a Cash who’s struggling to find himself musically, but where the character does find his voice, the actor never does. He sounds sorta lack-luster, although his heart’s obviously in it, and he never masters sounding like Johnny Cash. Which you could argue is impossible, but the only other big biopic of a musician I have to compare it to is Oliver Stone’s The Doors, and ole’ Doc Holiday was absolutely brilliant there, even vocally for the music.
Still, the songs are so great that even hearing lackluster covers of them is a lot of fun, and the acting is brilliant. The story itself was a bit disappointing, as I went into the movie knowing nothing about Johnny Cash personally, and it was a bit disheartening to discover that he’d never really been an “outlaw” like say, Willie Nelson or David Alan Coe or all those other cats from Texas that were making it big in the 50s and 60s. He was just a poor farmer’s kid who joined the Air Force, and then sucked at selling home accessories while raising a baby until he got a music career. No jail-time, no bar-fights, not much of anything that my favorite Cash songs are about.
Except, of course, for heart-ache and pain, which are there in spades through most of the movie and make it interesting. While he was never much of an outlaw, he was pretty damn miserable for a lot of his life, and we all like seeing famous people suffer. In the end, though, I think I would have come away with a greater understanding of Johnny Cash and his life, and heard better versions of his songs, if this had been an episode of VH1’s Behind the Music–it’s the same tired formula of “I’m nobody, I’m famous, I’m a junkie, I quit drugs” that’s become passe these days.
In case you can’t tell, I’m torn. I really wanted to like the movie, and I did enjoy it, but it just came off as nowhere near as good as I’d expected, been told it was, or thought it should be. It’s a solid movie but it’s not a great movie. Check it out if you like Johnny Cash, or you can’t get enough famous-guy-sob-stories, but honestly, there’s better stuff out there.
Where the Truth Lies
This one was a shocker. It seemed vaguely noirish in plot, and it featured Kevin Bacon (who is occasionally great in a B-list sorta way) and Colin Firth (whose name I recognized) so I thought “What the hell?” and brought it home.
I can’t decide if Kevin Bacon has simply fallen lower than I’d ever imagined, or if this was a daring decision to do a picture he thought had merit. I don’t think you go more than 15 minutes without seeing a nipple somewhere, there’s a couple of shots with impressive full-frontal, some Hot Lesbian Action ™, and there’s even a dead naked girl on ice in a trunk covered with lobsters, which was nice.
The thing is, it was actually well acted, and kinda moving, though in perfect noir fashion you do sort of lose sympathy with almost every character in the movie, by the end. This film, despite the constant sexuality and nudity that makes it seem like a late-night Skinemax picture, is pretty good. So like I said, I’m not sure if this is just a fluff-piece by decent actors trying to make a quick buck, or if it’s a serious mystery that just happens to feature a lot of sex.
I totally recommend it, either way. The plot twists are a bit unconventional, though you do see the big one coming from ten-thousand-miles away, and the characters themselves are really neat. It’s a beautiful look at the sordid side of Hollywood and the old comedy/nightclub scene back in the day.
Speaking of which, I guess I should give you a quick plot summary: It’s the 40s/50s, and Bacon and Firth portray two comedians who are at the top of their game. They’re beloved by millions and breaking into Hollywood and everything’s going their way, when a dead chick is discovered in their hotel room, a scandalous type thing in those days; their reputations suffer, and their career as a duo is over. Cut 15 years to the future, and a young up-and-coming journalist with a personal connection to the duo sets out to find out exactly what the deal was with the dead girl, and why it ruined them so completely.
It may be a late-night soft-core mystery, but it’s got an A-list cast for that kind of film, and it’s a lot of fun. Check it out and, with the caveats mentioned above, you won’t be disappointed. (For the record: this review applies to the Unrated Theatrical version; I don’t watch rated movies when there’s an unrated version available; probably a lot less sex in the rated version)
The Ice Harvest
When I see John Cusack’s name, I anticipate a neat movie. Same goes for Billy Bob Thornton. When they’re in the same movie, and it’s directed by Harold Ramis, then it’s got to kick ass, right?
Mostly. Weird part for Cusack, though. Cusack plays an attorney who works for the mob and hangs out in strip-joints a lot. Billy Bob is a strip-club owner, who’s a friend of Cusack. They decide to rip off Cusack’s boss. It goes without a hitch in the first five minutes of the movie.
From there, the plan is to lay low and not attract attention till the morning (did I mention it’s Xmas eve?) and then fly somewhere and disappear. There’s a lot going on, however, and it rapidly complicates, descends into farce, ascends into gritty old-school femme-fatale-driven noir, and finally ends well.
The plot, as in all movies of its ilk, bounces around a lot, and though it doesn’t often surprise you per se, it does keep you very interested. You never exclaim “Woah! That was cool!” but you’re always on the edge of your seat. Some of the characters are absolutely great, specifically the one bartender at the strip club that is Cusack’s main hang-out, the hatchet-man that the mob-boss sends to find his money, and also Dennis Quade as the mob-boss.
As mentioned before, there are a number of exposed breasts in this one as well. It’s not as dominant as in Where the Truth Lies, but if you’re the type of person that rents stuff solely on the off-chance that you’ll get to see tits (I am eternally amazed by the number of guys I meet “in the line of duty,” so to speak, that will rent anything as long as the chick on the cover is skimpily clad) then you will enjoy this film just as much as the next guy, who–being more discerning–will enjoy the fine plotting, skilled direction, and detailed performances.