THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND (2006, Kevin Macdonald)

 

* * * * 

When a restless young Scottish doctor takes a job in Uganda, he finds himself embroiled in the reign of dictator Idi Amin.

Starring  Forest Whitaker, James McAvoy, Kerry Washington, Simon McBurney, Gillian Anderson  

Written by  Peter Morgan, Jeremy Brock

Produced by  Charles Steel, Lisa Bryer, Andrea Calderwood   

Duration  123 minutes   

 

William Friedkin (THE EXORCIST, THE FRENCH CONNECTION) and Paul Greengrass (THE BOURNE SUPREMACY, CAPTAIN PHILIPS) started out directing documentaries, before pivoting to features. Martin Scorsese and Werner Herzog are thought of as narrative guys first and foremost, but still make docus as well.

Some directors, meanwhile, like to blend documentary and fiction at the same time, overlaying a story onto the real lives of non-actors. Steven Soderbergh tried this with BUBBLE; other filmmakers make it their modus operandi, like Harmony Korine (GUMMO, BABY INVASION), Chloe Zhao (THE RIDER, NOMADLAND) and many of recent ANORA Oscar-winner Sean Baker's movies: famously THE FLORIDA PROJECT and RED ROCKET, but also his early efforts like TAKE OUT and PRINCE OF BROOKLYN.

Todd Haynes is an interesting one. He made I’M NOT THERE, ostensibly a biopic of Bob Dylan, but one that cast six multi-gendered actors to portray the musician. Before that, Haynes had made VELVET GOLDMINE, set in glam rock's heyday but following fictional rockers, rather than the Velvet Underground themselves. And then, 20 years later, he went and made a straight-up documentary named THE VELVET UNDERGROUND, which was explicitly about the band!

Then you have those filmmakers who are making pure fiction, but want it to be as realistic as possible. Like the abovementioned Greengrass or Michael Mann (in particular with THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS.)

All of this is to say that the lines between fiction and real life, between depiction and dramatization, and between biopic and inspiration, can be pretty vague.

THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND's Kevin Macdonald is one of those director who started out in non-fiction and then pivoted to feature narratives (although, like Scorsese and Herzog, he does dip his toe back into the documentary waters from time to time). When he moved into narrative feature-making, it was with TOUCHING THE VOID, a docudrama about the near-fatal exploits of two mountain climbers. Now, let’s look a little closer at that genre classification, 'docudrama'. It’s a documentary, and it’s also a drama. It’s a reconstruction, but is it also a dramatization? Inevitably to a degree, but presumably drama-ed up as little as possible.

Interestingly, TOUCHING THE VOID has no screenplay credit. It mentions Joe Simpson, the climber who wrote the book that inspired the film, but not with an adaptation credit, just a mention of him being the book's author. Suggesting that there was no screenplay! But surely Macdonald didn’t drag hundreds of cast and crew up a mountain with a copy of the paperback and then flick through the pages telling them to act bits out on the spot?

What's irrefutable is that the goal with VOID was authenticity – to put us alongside the climbers as if we were there during their ordeal. However, when it came to Macdonald’s next film, THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND, things got a little more complicated.

Here, we have another true story. At least, kind of. The central figure is real-life Ugandan army commander Idi Amin, who did indeed overthrow the president in a 1971 coup d’etat. Amin was the subject of a 1998 novel of the same name by journalist Giles Foden, who was not in Uganda at the time. The novel was then adapted by acclaimed screenwriters Peter Morgan and Jeremy Brock, both of whom have CVs littered with fictionalized accounts of real-life people: THE QUEEN, FROST/NIXON and THE DAMNED UNITED, and MRS BROWN, I AM A SLAVE and DIANA AND I, respectively. To further complicate matters, their screenplay is described as 'considerably different' to its literary source.

THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND isn’t a biopic of Amin; he’s not even the main character. An early caption tells us "This film is inspired by real people and events", and then we open with our actual protagonist: James McAvoy as newly qualified doctor Nicholas. It's 1970 and his dad wants him to practice at home in boring old Scotland, but instead eager-for-adventure Nicholas spins his bedside globe and pokes his finger on Uganda.

He jumps on a plane to East Africa to join up with another white doctor and his wife, played by Gillian Anderson – trying out her Mrs Thatcher English accent years before The Crown. Before long, Nicholas is doling out injections to the villagers, playing street football in the dust, that sort of thing.  "You've certainly come at an interesting time," Anderson remarks: Amin's coup has literally just taken place. And soon the new prez is visiting their village, proving to be a charming and popular figure, orating a lot of propaganda about what he's going to do for Uganda. Anderson is sceptical, since the deposed president said the same things  – and turned out to be totally corrupt. Ominous.

Nicholas soon gets a chance to find out first-hand the truth behind the rhetoric. During a chance encounter on the road, Amin is impressed both by the medical assistance he receives from Nicholas and by how the young man grabs his handgun and pumps two .45 calibre rounds into a dying cow. Plus he has a thing for Scots, for some reason. And so the usurping general invites Nicholas be his personal physician.

This is a 'seduced by charismatic evil' movie. Nicholas is taken under Amin's wing, and is at first happy about his swanky apartment, vintage company car and elevated status. He defends Amin against people who doubt his benevolence, such as Simon McBurney's English Foreign Office correspondent. But Nicholas soon realises that his new boss is, in fact, a paranoid, philandering despot, with a hair-trigger temper from which even those closest to him aren't safe. Nicholas's life in Uganda spirals out of control, to the point that it comes down to kill or be killed. So, worse even than the streets of 1970s Glasgow.

Forest Whitaker famously won a Best Actor Oscar for playing Amid, in a rare case of award recognition for an established character actor. It was well-deserved, and Whitaker's ably matched by McAvoy, who puts in a star-making turn as the idealist hardened and changed by harsh reality.

However close THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND may be to what really happened in Uganda 50 years ago, it tells a story that's well worth your two hours. And that's the only kind of truth necessary, as far as I'm concerned.

Four stars out of five.

Valid use of the word ‘last’?  The actual last monarch of Scotland, as opposed to Great Britain as a whole, was Queen Anne (1702 to 1707).

What would a movie called THE FIRST KING OF SCOTLAND be about?  BRAVEHEART? I reckon?

 

Previously:  THE LAST ANGRY MAN

Next time:  INSIDIOUS: THE LAST KEY

Check out my books:  Jonathanlastauthor.com

THE LAST ANGRY MAN (1959, Daniel Mann)

 

* * * * 

A cantankerous New York City doctor unwittingly becomes the first ever reality TV star.

Starring  Paul Muni, David Wayne, Betsy Palmer, Luther Adler, Claudia McNeil, Joby Baker

Written by  Gerald Green

Produced by  Fred Kohlmar

Duration  100 minutes

 

 

In 1998, a new sitcom aired on BBC 2 called The Royle Family. Written by two of its stars, it centred around the everyday lives of a 'normal' working class family in the North of England.

This sitcom was a little different. Not only did the action mostly take place in the Royles' house, we hardly ever left the living room, where the family would chat while lounging around watching television.

Critics rounded on the concept. Who on Earth is going to sit watching their telly when all it's showing is people sat watching their own telly? Nevertheless, The Royle Family was a big hit. Being well-written, funny and having a talented cast certainly helped.

Fast-forward to 2013. Channel 4 introduces a new reality show named Gogglebox (an antiquated British term for the television). In this show, which is still going strong today, 'normal' people sit around watching TV and making comments while we watch them from the television's POV. Much like The Royle Family, the viewer feels like a fly on the wall; or, more accurately, a fly that's landed on the TV screen and sits there staring out at the viewers.

But there are three key differences between The Royle Family and Gogglebox. The first is that we cut between clips of the shows (or movies or documentaries or news broadcasts) they've been watching and the goggleboxers' quippy, allegedly spontaneous reactions. Secondly, we visit multiple households, as if we ourselves are channel surfing. (Which is a good thing to start doing whenever Gogglebox comes on, but I digress.)

It's the third difference that's the most crucial. Gogglebox is not well-written or funny and the people on it are not gifted comedic actors. They're obnoxious, witless and charmless, offering only banal and trite observations, delivering these non-insights in ways that seem designed to be as annoying as possible.

Gogglebox is a clear low point in popular culture. Its existence suggests a reverse-evolution theory for the human race. Obviously, reality TV is always garbage. But Googlebox is garbage that's been left out in the sun for several weeks.

But what kicked off the journey that led us to this nadir of nadirs? I don't mean what was the first reality show; that was probably MTV's The Real World in 1992. I mean, who was the first to speculate that perhaps there could even be a beast as hideous as reality TV?

Previously, I'd believed that it was Albert Brooks, with his brilliant 1979 satire REAL LIFE. But now I'm thinking that maybe the first artistic work to propose the reality concept was actually 1959's THE LAST ANGRY MAN.

In his final screen performance, former SCARFACE Paul Muni plays grouchy but dedicated neighbourhood GP Dr Sam Abelman. A pair of local hoodlums trust him enough to drop their injured ladyfriend on the doorstep of his Brooklyn brownstone in the early hours one morning. The neighbours get out of bed to watch the doc be surly ("You still owe me for your father's hernia operation!") while at the same time acting as the beating heart of the community. He clearly cares for all who cross his threshold – no matter the hour, affliction or the patient's capacity to pay.

The next day, we meet a television producer with the painful-sounding name of Woody Thrasher (David Wayne, THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN). Woody is desperate to thrash out a fresh angle for the TV show he's been pitching to his higher ups, and is intrigued when he reads an article doc Abelman's reporter nephew has published about last night's doorstep drama.

He tracks the good doctor down and proposes that he be the subject of a new programme. "Live television, from your house!" Thrasher gushes. "We'd visit with you – your family, your patients."

In the best hero's journey refusal-of-the-call tradition, Abelman won't play ball. But luckily, his enterprising nephew can better smell the opportunity and is determined to make a TV show with his 'Uncle Doc' happen.

Back in the TV station's offices, we get a flavour of how Thrasher wants his show – named Americans, USA – to play out. "Real people doing real things," he tells his boss. "Useful, dramatic lives! People whose every waking minute is drama!"

Ol' Thrash is a career man, but he seems honest enough. He's drawn to Abelman's passion, the man's integrity and dedication. He genuinely thinks that this physician will make great TV. But his paymasters, the studio's sponsor Gattling Pharmaceutical, instead see a chance to peddle their drugs using the eccentric but trusted medicine man as a vessel. Thrasher feels uneasy, but is pragmatic and moves forward with the plan.

So into Doc Abelman's home come the director and his crew, along with their '50s-era cameras and audio equipment. Thrasher has to explain to the family and sick people that they aren't playing parts or expected to act, but that they should just be who they are and do what they usually do. This is definitely an alien concept for everyone involved – including the movie's 1950s audience. 

As a result, and through no fault of its own, THE LAST ANGRY MAN is pretty slow and laboured in its set-up. It reminded me of when you read a classic novel like Dracula or The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and have to patiently wade though pages of people speculating about exactly what this strange new creature could possibly be.

When they get to the actual filming, it doesn't look much different to a standard TV programme. There's blocking, sound checks, multiple cameras, retakes ... it's really more like a news broadcast. There's little attempt to lead the subject, and a presenter fronts the action, interviewing Abelman and then talking straight to camera. They don't just start rolling and let the events unfurl. But at the same time, there isn't any of the selective editing or participant manipulation that we've come to expect from the modern reality genre.

Anyway, Americans, USA has barely been on air five minutes before the good doctor is going off script and badmouthing the pharmaceutical companies he's supposed to be praising, calling them peddlers of unnecessary medicines who are only concerned with lining their own pockets. Which doesn't go down well. Gattling Pharmaceutical wanted someone on TV who's 'real'; Dr Abelman is just too damn real!

And when Thrasher's conscience catches up with him and he warns the doc to change his tune or the network pulls the plug, which would deny Abelman the spoils coming his way (the network promised him a new house as payment), the principled GP tells the TV man to stuff his programme, and the same to all the 'galoots' who are behind it.

The movie turns out not to be a satire, which of course I never expected – how can you satirise reality TV before it's even been established? In the end, THE LAST ANGRY MAN is less about reality vs fiction and the mechanics of television than it is a two-hander between Muni and Wayne, playing a pair of very different men who learn a lot from each other and both grow as a consequence. I liked it.

Which is just as well, because if I'd've come away having drawn a direct line between it and Gogglebox, we'd be talking about Last Movie Reviews' first zero-star verdict. Maybe minus stars.

Four stars out of five.

Valid use of the word ‘last’?  Our principled doc does seem to represent a dying breed, in the face of the unethical standards of TV and his fame-hungry nephew. So, he's the last something.

What would a movie called THE FIRST ANGRY MAN be about?  In terms of the most angry man, also in a movie that's also about television, you'd have to go for Peter Finch as derenged broadcaster Howard Beale in NETWORK (1976).

 

Previously:  LAST NIGHT

Next time:  THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND 

Check out my books:  Jonathanlastauthor.com

LAST EXIT TO BROOKLYN (1989, Uli Edel)

 

* * * * 

Life, love, loss and labour disputes in 1950’s New York City.

Starring  Jennifer Jason Leigh, Stephen Lang, Burt Young, Peter Dobson, Jerry Orbach

Written by  Desmond Nakano

Produced by  Bernd Eichinger

Duration  103 minutes  

 

 

Sometimes, you see the reference before you know the thing it's referencing.

The early, golden episodes of The Simpsons were chockablock with brilliantly conceived movie references. CITIZEN KANE was a favourite, getting a whole episode with Mr Burns' childhood teddy bear substituting the sled Rosebud. Hitchcock came up a lot, too, specifically PSYCHO, VERTIGO and REAR WINDOW – which also got its own whole-episode parody, when Lisa and Bart think Ned Flanders has murdered his wife.

One of my favourites is 'Last Exit to Springfield'. The one where Homer becomes the head of the power plant's workers' union to try to get free braces for Lisa. ("Dental plan!" "Lisa needs braces." "Dental plan!" "Lisa needs braces." "Dental plan!" " ... If we give up our dental plan ... I'll have to pay for Lisa's braces!")

It's an episode that makes several references, among them THE GODFATHER PART II; 1989's BATMAN; the Beatles' YELLOW SUBMARINE; How the Grinch Stole Christmas; and Moby-Dick. But I didn't at first know what that title was alluding to. It definitely sounded like a reference, and I just supposed that it must be somehow relevant to the episode's plot.

I came to realise that it was a nod to an '80s-shot, '50s-set movie called LAST EXIT TO BROOKLYN. But I never saw it back then, and my interest was only piqued (before now) after I became a fan of drugged-up misery-fest REQUIEM FOR A DREAM, and learned that both it and LAST EXIT were adapted from novels by the same author, Hubert Selby Jr.

Apparently, the book is a loose collection of inter-connected short fictions set in the same area, rather like Trainspotting. If that's so, then screenwriter Desmond Nakano did a great job of blending them into a coherent narrative. 

Characters in the ensemble include Georgette (Alexis Arquette), a brash transgender prostitute; dockworker Big Joe (Burt Young, playing Paulie from ROCKY as if he finally left Philly and started a family), whose daughter's baby out of wedlock prompts a hasilty arranged wedding and christening; Jennifer Jason Leigh's Tralala, a prostitute who makes a few extra bucks from propositioning sailors and then robbing them when the deed is done; and Stephen Lang as Harry, a closeted factory machinist, who during the strike abuses his position in the union by using its funds to take his deadbeat mates out boozing, while exploring the local underground gay scene on the sly.

With the exception of Big Joe's, none of these storylines end well. Georgette is thrown out of the family home by her homophobic brother and is then killed in a hit-and-run. Harry is viciously beaten by the same buddies he had been trying to impress after they uncover his sexuality. And Tralala is brutally gang-raped in an abandoned car and then left for dead.

It's this last character who I found the most heart-breaking. Tralala meets a nice guy for once, a sailor who wants to get to know her and hang out for a few days doing 'couple' things before he ships out; when he does, he leaves her a love note that almost brings her to tears. 

But Leigh is playing a character who is so used to getting a bum steer from life that when she's shown a little glimmer of tenderness she can't handle it. She reacts by subjecting herself to self-flagellating humiliation – her fate at the hands of dozens of leering, drunken barflies comes at her own invitation, when she binge-drinks whiskey, rips off her own clothes and challenges them to do their worst. She doesn't think she deserves happiness and takes comfort in sinking back to the gutter, where the world has convinced her she belongs. 

Leigh is utterly mesmerising in the role; with this and 1990's MIAMI BLUES, she was truly graduating from teen films to more grown-up fare.

Stephen Lang, meanwhile, I mostly knew as psychotic serial killer The Party Crasher in mis-matched buddy action comedy THE HARD WAY; that, or for playing a psychotic military type in AVATAR, or even the psychotic blind dude in the DON'T BREATHE movies. But here, he's agonisingly soulful as a regular guy who's desperately trying to find his place in the world.

Also in the cast are Jerry Orbach (the dad from DIRTY DANCING) as a principled union boss; a young Stephen Baldwin as a local hoodlum; Ricky Lake as Big Joe's daughter; and apparently a pre-fame Sam Rockwell was in there somewhere too, but I didn't spot him and I don't think he has any lines.

German Uli Edel is example of a foreign director with an outsider's eye of New York City, like the French Luc Besson (LEON), Polish Roman Polanski (ROSEMARY'S BABY), Austrian Billy Wilder (THE APARTMENT), Italian Sergio Leone (ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA) ... does Canadian Ivan Reitman count, with GHOSTBUSTERS? Anyway, in LAST EXIT, the titular borough is depicted like another planet or a subterranean level of hell. Cinematographer Stefan Czapdky shoots it like Michael Chapman did Scorsese's TAXI DRIVER (that director being an actual New Yorker, of course): all rising steam and dark alleys and dirty puddles.

There's another Scorsese-style touch when the camera cranes away, ashamed, during Harry's beating. His assailants leave him bloody and propped up against wooden rafters in a crucifix pose – and then we cut to a christening! So, the religious allusions are very Marty, too.

This is a harsh film, despite them actually toning down the book – which had been strong enough to earn it a trial in the UK under the Obscene Publications Act. But LAST EXIT is more moving in its humility and rawness than anything I've seen for a good while. Ultimately, it's about trying to find pockets of happiness in an ugly world; just by keeping up that pursuit, you're not letting go of hope.

No mention of dental plans, though.

(Also, there's a beautiful score by Mafk Knopfler, although it can't quite match his masterful earlier work on LOCAL HERO – the theme from which is so good that Newcastle United Football Club run onto the pitch to it,)

Four stars out of five.

Valid use of the word ‘last’? If we’re going to Brooklyn, where are we coming from? Tarlala romances the kind sailor in Manhattan, so in theory she could go back and forth on the Brooklyn Bridge. But chances are she takes the subway.

What would a movie called FIRST EXIT TO BROOKLYN be about?  There is apparently an album by something called The Foetus Symphony Orchestra entitled ‘York (First Exit to Brooklyn)'. So, some kind of concept movie based around that, I guess, like Pink Floyd’s THE WALL or The Who’s TOMMY.

 

Previously:  LAST CALL

Next time:  I STILL KNOW WHAT YOU DIDLAST SUMMER 

Check out my books:  Jonathanlastauthor.com

THE LAST AMERICAN VIRGIN (1982, Boaz Davidson)

 

* * * * 

Three horny teenage boys pursue girls in suburban Los Angeles.

Starring  Lawrence Monoson, Diane Franklin, Steve Antin, Joe Rubbo, Louisa Moritz

Written by  Boaz Davidson   

Produced by  Yoram Globus, Menahem Golan, David Womark   

Duration  92 minutes   

 

PORKY'S. REVENGE OF THE NERDS. SCREWBALLS. LOSIN’ IT. HARDBODIES. SPRING BREAK. THE LAST AMERICAN VIRGIN.

One of these 1980s teen sex romps is not like the others.

Despite coming from the less-than-reputable Canon Films – known for such dubious output as SUPERMAN IV: THE QUEST FOR PEACE and MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE, as well as for igniting/prolonging the careers of Jean-Claude Van Damme, Chuck Norris, and Charles Bronson – THE LAST AMERICAN VIRGIN turns out to be a pleasant surprise. It’s not what I expected at all; well, it does have everything I expected in it, but also a lot more besides, making it unique among its peers.

It doesn't stand out just because its director, Boaz Davidson, took the uncommon step of remaking his own film: AMERICAN VIRGIN is a US-based version the Israeli LEMON POPSICLE. Other members of this exclusive self-remaking club include Alfred Hitchcock (THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH, 1934/1956), Michael Haneke (FUNNY GAMES, 1997/2007), John Woo (THE KILLER, 1989/2024) and Michael Mann (kind of – he expanded his 1989 TV movie LA TAKEDOWN into HEAT in 1995).

AMERICAN VIRGIN isn't notable for having a cast who went onto bigger things, either. There's only Kimmy Robertson, years before portraying dim-witted secretary Lucy Moran on Twin Peaks, and Diane Franklin, who would go on to feature in BETTER OFF DEAD and BILL & TED'S EXCELLENT ADVENTURE. Probably the biggest up-and-comer is found on the other side of the camera. The film looks unexpectedly great, due to being lensed by Adam Greenberg, the cinematographer who had ALIEN NATION, GHOST, NEAR DARK and both of James Cameron’s TERMINATOR movies in his future.

It also doesn't stand out in terms of plot. It's a pretty loose affair, mostly tying together a series of misadventures – at first comical, then more serious. The sensitive nice guy from three best buddies is infatuated with a new girl at school, but his more studly and less ethical mate gets in with her first. Meanwhile, their other, chubbier pal wears sunglasses indoors, talks about ‘partying’ a lot and provides frequent plus-sized comic relief.

So, while it may not be distinctive for any of those reasons, let me give you a flavour of what the cinematic artifact named THE LAST AMERICAN VIRGIN is.

It’s luring some girls you just met in a diner back to your parent-free house with the promise of Class-A drugs, then surreptitiously racking up lines of Sweet N Low on a mirror – which they gleefully snort, declaring "This is the best Columbian we’ve ever had!"

It’s strutting into a party with your collar up and your hair slicked back, tearing open a pack of Marlboro Reds and swigging Jack Daniels straight from the bottle. Then when you return home and drunkenly interrupt your parents' sophisticated dinner party, you try to seduce the most stern-looking matriarch in attendance before collapsing onto the dining table, sending plates and drinks flying.

It’s delivering a pizza to a nymphomaniac cougar, and then returning to her apartment again with your two mates in tow so you can take turns having sex with her, peeking in on each other through the keyhole. And when her husband comes home, he totally buys her explanation that there are half-naked teenagers in the house because she was "giving them Spanish lessons."

It’s parking on the beach so you can furiously make out in the back seat of a convertible and kicking the handbrake off in the throes of passion, and then being so preoccupied that you don't even notice the car's rolled into the surf and you’re drenched with sea water.

It’s catching the nerdiest guy in gym class spying on girls showering through a peephole (a la PORKY’S) and, when he claims to possess the largest penis in school, deciding to line up all your schoolmates and measure their erections one by one with a ruler. And it turns out the nerd was right.

It’s hiring LA’s least sympathetic prostitute so you can lose your virginity, and then feeling worse after the deed is done than you did before – and not just because of the resultant STD.

It’s also practically a music video montage with a movie in between, years before MTV. And the early ’80s soundtrack is stellar, not to be beaten until the video game GTA: Vice City, with which it shares some songs. 

Among others, the track list includes:

‘De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da’ – The Police

‘Whip It’ – Devo

‘Better Luck Next Time’ – Oingo Boingo

‘In the Flesh’ – Blondie

‘Oh No’ – The Commodores

‘Open Arms’ – Journey

‘Keep on Loving You’ – REO Speedwagon

‘Love Action’ – The Human League

‘Shake It Up’ – The Cars

‘I Will Follow’ – U2

 

But also, and ultimately, it turns out to be a lot more soulful and earnest than the raunchy tone, bawdy dialogue and excessive nudity of its early stretch suggests. Two thirds through there's a plot development similar to that in 1982’s FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH, another movie that rises above genre trappings: sensitively handled unwanted teenage pregnancy.

So, yeah. We like these kids. We don’t judge them for being young and led by their impulses. We end up invested in their dodgy decisions and flawed but ultimately well-meaning pursuits. 

And the movie has one of the all-time gut-punch endings of the ’80s, maybe even up there with the decade’s ultimate downer denouement from David Cronenberg’s THE FLY.

I can’t believe I’m going to give THE LAST AMERICAN VIRGIN this rating, but ... yep, there you go.

Four stars out of five.

Valid use of the word ‘last’?  The original LEMON POPSICLE spawned eight sequels in its native Isreal, so although this movie had no follow-ups (and yet we got four installments of both PORKY’S and REVENGE OF THE NERDS!), there were plenty more virgins left out there.

What would a movie called THE FIRST AMERICAN VIRGIN be about?  Maybe a teen sex romp mashed-up with 1492: CONQUEST OF PARADISE?

Previously:  LAST TANGO IN PARIS

Next time:  THE TOXIC AVENGER PART III: THE LAST TEMPTATION OF TOXIE 

Check out my books:  Jonathanlastauthor.com

THE LAST PHOTOGRAPH (2017, Danny Huston)

 

* * * * 

When a treasured memento is stolen, a man has to once again face the pain of losing his son in tragic circumstances 15 years ago.  

Starring  Danny Huston, Sarita Choudhury, Stacy Martin, Jonah Hauer-King  

Written by  Simon Astaire

Produced by  Simon Astaire, Farah Abushwesha, Julia Rausing

Duration  86 minutes   

   

 

Nepotism. Is it bad? Of course it is. If the CEO of a major corporation gives his unqualified college-dropout son a plum six-figure salary, it’s going to ruffle some feathers.

But is nepotism always bad? No one criticises the concept of ‘going into the family business’, like when a teenager whose father owns a construction firm begins laying bricks on one of the old man’s sites, or if a greengrocer's kid comes to work among the produce.

The entertainment industry, on the other hand, regularly comes under scrutiny – the fashionable term being ‘nepo baby’. But no one goes to see a film because the relative of a popular actor is in it; the actor in question has to build their own reputation and following. 

Yet it’s inarguable that many have used their family to get a leg up with that elusive 'big break', and while they may have then needed their own talent and hard work to keep their career going, would they have got their chance in the first place if not for a famous surname?

The Hustons – of which THE LAST PHOTOGRAPH’s Danny is one – have arguably the most prestigious lineage in all of Hollywood. Walter Huston was an actor, directed by his son John Huston to Oscar glory in THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE (1948), with John also bagging statues for helming the film and for writing it.

John was a sometime actor himself, too, most notably playing the villain in CHINATOWN (1974); but he’s definitely better known for being on the other side of the camera. His work includes directing another family member to an Oscar: his daughter Anjelica Huston, in PRIZZI’S HONOR (1985). He never directed his son, Danny Huston, but Danny did embarks on his own directing career – as did sister Anjelica. Meanwhile, they have another sibling who is an actor, Tony Huston, whose son, Jack Huston, is (wait for it) ... also an actor.

Other notable acting/filmmaking dynasties include the Barrymores (Lionel, Ethel, John, John again, Drew); the Fondas (Henry, Peter, Jane, Bridget); and the Coppolas (in their case not all making use of the family name: Francis, Carmine, Sofia and Roman did, but you also have Talia Shire, Nicolas Cage and Jason Schwartzman).

Sometimes these families play families onscreen. I’ve never seen the awful-sounding Kirk, Michael and Cameron Douglas movie IT RUNS IN THE FAMILY, from 2003. But I would like to see a hypothetical comedy starring the Baldwin brothers – Alec, Stephen, William and Daniel – where, let's say, they kidnap fellow actors but not-in-fact-actual-relations Adam Baldwin (FULL METAL JACKET) and A. Michael Baldwin (PHANTASM) and recruit them into a scheme for world domination.

THE LAST PHOTOGRAPH only has Danny representing the Huston clan, albeit pulling double duty as both director and lead. And it may not star any other members of his family, but the story is certainly about family.

It’s 2003. Danny is Tom, an American living in the UK, running a bookshop in Chelsea, West London. One day, his bag is stolen by a cameoing Jaime (daughter of Ray) Winstone, sending his life into what the promotional materials (and, at one point, he himself) describe as ‘a tailspin’ when he realises he’s lost his most treasured possession: a photograph of he and his late son from the last time they were together, 15 years ago.

And ‘tailspin’ is an accurate word, being that it refers to a crashing aircraft. Because 15 years ago, Tom's son died on the real-life ‘Lockerbie bombing’ flight: the Boeing 747 from Heathrow Airport to JFK that crashed into the Scottish Town of Lockerbie on 21 December 1988, after a bomb exploded on board.

So, what we have here is a rumination on grief. And a powerful one. Huston’s raw, genuine performance is a big factor: he legitimately earns the family name. The scene where he struggles to absorb being told "Sir, there were no survivors" is a masterclass in blind hope being dragged through stubborn denial into numb acceptance.

As director, Huston mixes in real-life news footage from the plane crash – featuring '80s big glasses (back in fashion today) and drab wallpaper (never to be popular again) – with two timelines: the then-present and flashbacks to father and son in 1988. A tragedy, Huston is demonstrating, doesn't just happen once; it hits us repeatedly, years later, unannounced and just as raw. His point is underlined by occasional (but never overdone) mentions of 9/11, the spectre of which was still fresh in our shared consciousness in 2003.

The only real criticism I have of THE LAST PHOTOGRAPH is that I wasn’t too keen on the actor playing the flashback-glimpsed son. We needed to miss the boy ourselves as Tom does, whereas I found his segments to be a bit too saccharine, especially while they explored his burgeoning relationship with soon-to-be-tragic first love, Stacy Martin (from Lars Von Trier’s NYMPHOMANIAC).

What we could have done with was some of that old nepotism coming into play: I wish Danny had rung up his nephew Jack Huston, so impressive as a disfigured WWI vet in TV's Boardwalk Empire, to play his character's son, instead of using this nondescript guy Jonah Hauer-King.

Wait, hold on. ‘Hauer’ ... let me just check something. Nope – his dad isn’t Rutgar Hauer, from BLADE RUNNER. That extra bit of nepotism would have tied this review together far too neatly. Although Jonah’s mother was a theatre producer, apparently, so maybe ...

Four stars out of five.

Valid use of the word ‘last’?  In a rare instance of total literal accuracy: yes.

What would a movie called THE FIRST PHOTOGRAPH be about?  Art in Context informs us: "The world’s first permanent photograph was taken in 1827 and was titled 'View from the Window at Le Gras'. The first photo in the world was created by an inventor from France named Nicéphore Niépce."

 

Previously:  LAST SURVIVORS

Next time:  LAST RIDE 

Check out my books:  Jonathanlastauthor.com

THE LAST SUPPER (1995, Stacy Title)

 

* * * * 

A group of liberal grad students start inviting extreme right-wingers to dinner and murdering them after the inevitable clash of ideologies.

Starring  Cameron Diaz, Courtney B Vance, Ron Eldard, Jonathan Penner, Annabeth Gish, Bill Paxton

Written by  Dan Rosen

Produced by  Matt Cooper, Larry Weinberg   

Duration  92 minutes

Movies should be a balancing act between entertainment and art, with the nature of the picture determining in which direction the scales tip.

So where does politics fit in? Used sparingly and subtly, a bit of an agenda can add depth. Rian Johnson, for instance, is one mainstream filmmaker who sneaks rhetoric into their work. This enriched KNIVES OUT and gave an already excellent film more power, but came across as a little preachy in the sequel, GLASS ONION.

Going further back, DR STRANGELOVE is hilarious first and shines a light on Cold War hysteria second. INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS alludes to Communist paranoia while still being surface-level chilling. On the other hand, LAND OF THE DEAD is a little too on-the-nose with its Dennis-Hopper-as-George-W-Bush ironic casting. And GET OUT is a pretty bog-standard piece of suspense horror, one that would practically disappear if you took away its subtexts (director Jordan Peele himself instead calls it a ‘social thriller’.)

However, THE LAST SUPPER is a different beast altogether. This film isn't trying to sneak you some politics through the backdoor; the politics are the movie.

LAST SUPPER’S concept is novel, but does have precedents – it’s in the tradition of ‘lefties turn to righty tactics when pushed too far’. A lot of vigilante stuff falls into this trope, with the Jodie Foster-starring THE BRAVE ONE a recent example. But the forefather is, believe it or not, the first DEATH WISH. Early on, Charles Bronson actually says, "My heart bleeds a little for the underprivileged". Then when a couple of scenes later some of those underprivileged attack his family, he decides that he’d prefer to make their hearts bleed ... from bullet wounds!

The liberal fightback in LAST SUPPER kicks off when Bill Paxton’s truck driver gives one of the house-sharing grad students a lift home, following car trouble. They reward him with a meal and he turns out to be an aggressively racist Desert Storm-veteran, whose idea of dinner table conversion is like a checklist of the deplorable: "Everyone hates the Jews"; "The Nazis had the right idea"; and "My granddaddy said if he’d known them slaves were gonna be so much trouble, we’d have picked the cotton ourselves!" For pudding, he gets a knife to the spine.

Having got away with one murder, the housemates decide that from now on they’ll have a guest round for "lunch and discussion" once a week. Spoiler: they don't invite any wallflowers.

Instead, it’s more like anti-abortionists; Nation of Islam fundamentalists; Charles Durning’s Old Testament vicar ("Homosexuality is the disease and Aids is the cure"); Mark Harmon’s chauvinist rape-apologist ("How often does a woman say no when she really means yes?"); an anti-environmentalist played by Seinfeld's Jason Alexander with a goofy Southern accent; and more, poisoning one and all with arsenic-spiked dessert wine. Meanwhile, the unmarked graves in the tomato patch start to line up like morbid speed bumps.

Having Paxton play the first kill as someone who might as well have horns and a pointy tail seems blandly manipulative at first glance, but is actually a shrewd move. By making the first victim so cartoonishly hateable, LAST SUPPER lures the audience into siding with the protagonists right away. We fall into the trap of seeing things in black and white as they at first do, which makes it all the easier to share in their unease as shades of grey get mixed in.

Despite how it might sound, this is not a dogmatic film; it goes about its business with a clear head and a welcome lack of partisanship. This means it can smoothly and intelligently explore its core ‘what if’: many an impassioned left-instigated debate has felt like it could erupt into violence, so how about escalating to homicide?

And the movie has other things on its mind, too, such as: do the left debate too much instead of acting? If they were as proactive as the right, maybe the world would be less fucked up and they really could ‘make a difference’ for once. In fact, could the only way to really make that elusive ‘difference’ be to eliminate the negative people – the classic would-you-kill-baby-Hitler? debate.

The grads tell each other that they want to give their guests the chance to change their views and avoid becoming tomato fertiliser, but an emerging murkiness about whether the intention is really to educate or if it’s to punish is just one cause of tension among the gang. Then the net starts to close in by way of Nora Dunn’s sheriff investigating an unrelated crime involving one of the last supper victims, and the cracks among the moralistic murderers begin widening into chasms.

Cameron Diaz now stands out as the ‘name’ in the cast, but she was unknown at the time (THE MASK had only just been released) and is part of a genuine ensemble, with every character well-drawn and compellingly portrayed. It all plays out in ways that are at once surprising, logical and satisfying, making it a real pity that director Stacy Title and screenwriter Dan Rosen aren't better known.

Four stars out of five.

Valid use of the word ‘last’?  The title is pretty much perfect for where the film’s at: it’s got death, it’s got judgement, but it’s also wryly self-aware.

What would a movie called THE FIRST SUPPER be about? Probably pretty unappetising. Some brambles and such, I’m guessing.

Previously:  THE LAST SEDUCTION

Next time:  LAST VEGAS

Check out my books:  Jonathanlastauthor.com

THE LAST SEDUCTION (1994, John Dahl)

 * * * * 

She’s a woman in a man’s world – and in his pants, and in his wallet. Whatever it takes to get her hands on nearly a million dollars.

Starring  Linda Fiorentino, Peter Berg, Bill Pullman, JT Walsh, Bill Nunn

Written by  Steve Barancik

Produced by  Jonathan Shestack   

Duration  110 minutes   

Bill Pullman had terrible luck onscreen with women in the ’90s. SOMMERSBY, MALICE, SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE – he doesn’t get the girl in any of them. As if people getting him mixed up with Bill Paxton all the time wasn’t bad enough! Even though that's plainly preposterous (unlike Dermott Mulroney and Dylan McDermott or Kim Coates and Elias Koteas; now, those I can understand.)

THE LAST SEDUCTION was part of Pullman’s luckless streak of cinematic romance, but it isn’t actually his movie. His character's merely one of the men spun into the web weaved by his wife Bridget (Linda Fiorentino), in his case when she pinches the $700,000 he made selling pharmaceutical cocaine and does a runner from their New York apartment. 

Unlike the Pullman/Paxton phenomenon, Fiorentino definitely wasn't getting mistaken for anyone else. With LAST SEDUCTION, she carved a distinct place on the list of classic femme fatales, among Ava Gardner in THE KILLERS, Barbara Stanwyck in DOUBLE INDEMNITY, Sharon Stone in BASIC INSTINCT and Kathleen Turner in BODY HEAT – although come to think of it, Fiorentino does sound a bit like the throaty-voiced Turner.

But her Bridget is a true one-off, a whip-smart and resourceful force of nature who gets what she wants, always looks out for number one, and makes sure she has a damn good time along the way.

Peter Berg – just before veering from acting to directing with VERY BAD THINGS, followed by a succession of tepid Mark Wahlberg projects – plays the needy feminine role here. He's Mike, a local from the small town in which our heroine hides out while the heat dies down back in NYC. At first Mike's just a fuck buddy, but Bridget quickly pegs him as more useful as a patsy for a new scheme she’s brewing up.

It's sometimes said that movies need to have sympathetic characters in order to work. Do they bollocks! It’s asinine to criticise a picture for expecting you to side with someone less than angelic; a bland lament trotted out by people unable to process that you can relate to a flawed person while not approving of their behaviour.

In LAST SEDUCTION, Bridget lies, steals, blackmails, curses like Jack Nicholson in THE LAST DETAIL, uses people, has zero empathy ... and we want her to succeed. Why? Because she’s determined and resourceful, she’s quick-witted and smart and she doesn’t take shit from anyone. Most of us are meek and listless in our everyday lives; we respect someone who ruthlessly pursues their goals, even if we don’t like what those goals are.

And hey, guess what – it’s fiction we’re talking about here! Newsflash: we all have less than pure impulses and the realm of fantasy is a harmless place to indulge them, whether that’s just in our own minds or during a couple of hours spent watching a movie. Better like that than actually acting on them.

THE LAST SEDUCTION does still hedge its bets, but rather cleverly. Pullman's character impulsively hits Bridget in the opening scene, framing all her subsequent betrayals as stemming from domestic abuse. So in the viewer’s eyes, not to mention her own, she's the wronged one and spends the movie fighting back. Plus it helps that Pullman forgoes his usual nice guy routine to play the kind of sleazebag Tom Sizemore would have been proud of.

Fiorentino is formidable as Bridget, who remains pleasingly unrepentant until the bitter end. Director John Dahl (KILL ME AGAIN, RED ROCK WEST) adds another solid neo-noir to his resume, and we all get to enjoy some time on the wrong side of the tracks, before crossing safely back over to our straight-arrow lives, where we all live like flawless saints.

And for the record, Bill Pullman has been happily married since 1987, has three children, and did in fact get a happy romantic ending in 1995's WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING. So, there's hope for all of us. 

Four stars out of five.

 

Valid use of the word ‘last’?  As Bridget drives away scot-free at the end, it seems highly doubtful that she won’t be using her powers of seduction again on the next hapless male who either gets in the way of what she wants or who can be manipulated into helping her acquire it.

What would a movie called THE FIRST SEDUCTION be about?  Maybe it’s about time we had a Bridget Gregory origin story?

 

Previously:  THE LAST DETAIL

Next time:  THE LAST SUPPER

Check out my books:  Jonathanlastauthor.com

SAFETY LAST! (1923, Fred C Newmeyer, Sam Taylor)

 

* * * * 

A young man leaves his village to seek his fortune in the city, with hilarious consequences.  

Starring  Harold Lloyd, Mildred Davis, Bill Strother, Noah Young, Westcott Clarke

Written by  H M Walker, Jean Havez, Harold Lloyd

Produced by  Hal Roach

Duration  73 minutes   

   

Marilyn Monroe’s dress billowing from an air vent in THE SEVEN YEAR ITCH (1955). The bike in front of the moon in ET (1982). Fred Astaire swinging from a lamp post in SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN (1952). Father Merrin arriving outside the house in THE EXORCIST (1973). Janet Leigh screaming in the shower in PSYCHO (1960).

So what is the most iconic image in motion pictures? And where does Harold Lloyd hanging from a clock face way above a busy street in 1923’s SAFETY LAST! figure? And furthermore, to what extent do people (like me) only know that shot because it was paid tribute to in BACK TO THE FUTURE?

I’d wager that most casual moviegoers have no idea from what movie the Monroe sequence comes, let alone the plot of SEVEN YEAR ITCH (which is a fairly amusing mid-level Billy Wilder comedy). And I was certainly ignorant about SAFETY LAST!, save for the hi-jinks promised by the title, and the fact that a bloke hanging off a giant clock is unlikely to come from neo-realism.

I was familiar with Charlie Chaplin; well, I’ve seen CITY LIGHTS (1931). And I knew Buster Keaton; that is to say, I caught THE GENERAL (1926) on TV one time. But I’d never heard of Harold Lloyd, so wasn’t sure if he was going to have as indelible a screen image as those two silent movie titans.

As it turns out, in SAFTEY LAST! Lloyd is playing a character named ... 'Harold Lloyd'. Just like James Spader plays 'James Ballard' in CRASH (1996), except without the creepy implications of that far more twisted story (JG Ballard was never actually part of a cult that sexualised car crashes ... presumably). Anyway, movie Lloyd is earnest, naïve and good-natured – not to mention physically dextrous. We like him.

The plot has Lloyd heading off to "the big city" (Los Angeles?) to find employment, so he can then send for his fiancé to join him when he is successful (she, incidentally, is played by Mildred Davis, who looks exactly like every other silent movie actress – or maybe I’ve only ever seen her, who knows.) And from there, it’s a series of his escapades in menial work, sprinkled with some mistaken identity, due to Lloyd wanting his visiting sweetheart to believe he has risen high up the corporate ladder.

And the movie is pretty funny. There are lots of great sight gags: Harold running onto the back of a truck instead of his train; he and his flatmate jumping under their hung-up coats to hide from their rent-happy landlady. And the title cards are often amusing, too, as a substitute for witty spoken dialogue. 

Really, SAFETY LAST! is a relentless series of moments designed to make you chuckle. It’s basically a live-action cartoon. Plus the clock sequence does not disappoint, managing to be a genuinely suspenseful set piece (although given the choice, I’d take Dr Emmett Brown any day of the week.)

So alright, answer me this: does the world need silent movies back? Was anything better before sound? I guess you didn’t get the mixing problems on movies like Chris Nolan’s INTERSTELLAR and TENET, or have to endure an actor’s voice that you find annoying. There’s an efficiency to the storytelling, an unavoidable and welcome reliance on the ‘show, don't tell’ principle.

And it’s not like every technological advance makes the old thing redundant. Take practical effects vs CGI: it’s now a cliche that filmmakers will boast how much a scene is practical and not computer generated, especially a stunt. (This is a far cry from 1998’s LOST IN SPACE, where the marketing gushed so proudly about the project breaking the record for number of onscreen SFX shots, with 750.)

But ultimately, let’s face facts: after THE ARTIST kicked up such a big fuss back in 2011, people didn’t suddenly fly out and start making more silent movies, did they? So what does that tell you?

Four stars out of five.

Valid use of the word ‘last’?  The entire backend of the film is Lloyd climbing up a building with nothing to stop him falling to his death, so they weren’t joking when they told us that being safe would not figure high on the agenda.

What would a movie SAFETY FIRST! be about?  It would be a lot duller.

Previously:  THE LAST DAYS OF AMERICAN CRIME

Next time:  LAST NIGHT IN SOHO 

Check out my books:  Jonathanlastauthor.com

LAST TRAIN FROM GUN HILL (1959, John Sturges)

 

* * * * 

The death of his wife at the hands of an old friend’s son puts a lawman on a collision course with his former pal.

Starring  Kirk Douglas, Anthony Quinn, Carolyn Jones, Earl Holliman, Brad Dexter

Written by  James Poe

Produced by  Hal B Wallis  

Duration  90 minutes

Here we go! John Sturges. One of the great western directors, up there with John Ford, Sergio Leone, Clint Eastwood, Sam Peckinpah and Howard Hawks. THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN, anyone? GUNFIGHT AT THE OK CORRAL? Not to mention that Bank Holiday perennial, all-star WWII epic THE GREAT ESCAPE. Stephen King even named the town in The Dark Tower: Part 5 ‘Calla Bryn Sturgis’ after Sturges, acknowledging his book’s similarities to MAGNIFICENT SEVEN.

Now, I’d never heard of Sturge’s LAST TRAIN FROM GUN HILL, which is nestled somewhere in the middle of the great man’s career. But I was certainly familiar with its leads.

Kirk Douglas has one of those iconic cinema faces, seemingly carved out of marble. SPARTACUS is, for me, Stanley Kubrick's weakest post-THE KILLING film, but man that's a legendary role for Kirk. (Side note: PATHS OF GLORY, the pair’s other team-up, is one of Kubrick’s best.) My favourite Douglas performance is in Billy Wilder’s black-as-coal media satire ACE IN THE HOLE, and he has no trouble being convincing in locales as diverse as ships on the sea (VIKINGS) and ships in space (SATURN 3). And he lived until 103, the bloody trooper.

Then you’ve got Anthony Quinn. I’ll always think of him as a comedy mobster in LAST ACTION HERO and for portraying a much more menacing villain as the cuckolded husband in Tony Scott’s REVENGE, but he too had a storied decades-long career, winning two Oscars and popping up in the likes of LAWRENCE OF ARABIA, THE GUNS OF NAVARONE and LA STRADA.

Here, the two titans play former friends who are now on opposite sides of the law. It’s a solid dramatic setup, also used for William Holden and Robert Ryan in Peckinpah’s THE WILD BUNCH, and again with Nick Nolte and Powers Booth in EXTREME PREJUDICE from another westernphile, Walter Hill.

In LAST TRAIN FROM GUN HILL, Douglas is the good guy US Marshall, first seen joking around with the local kids outside his cop shop. His mood worsens considerably when his own son turns up, distraught. The lad tearfully leads pop into the woods, where his mother/Douglas’s wife has been raped and murdered by a couple of whisky-swigging cowboys. 

Not only that, but one of the rapist-murderers turns out to be the son of Tony Quinn’s wealthy-but-dodgy cattle baron. So, Douglas jumps on a train to Quinn’s ends, Gun Hill, and arrests the boy – but when Tony stands in his way, he has to pivot into a local hotel and wait it out with his hostage until the next train arrives, putting the two old buddies into a tense standoff. Douglas’s only ally in this hostile town is Carolyn Jones's feisty dame, a bitter ex-lover of Quinn and the only Gun Hillian willing to stand up to the man who effectively runs the whole place.

Douglas’s granite determination to see justice done in the face of passive local authorities is well-matched by Quinn, who has the more complex role. He retains a fondness for Kirk from all the years they’ve known each other and actually views his own son with distain – in general, for a lack of character, and specifically for his recent abhorrent actions. And yet family is family, so the crooked rancher is driven by loyalty to protect his offspring from what he knows the boy deserves morally; added to this, Tony can’t lose face in the town that shudders before his name.

The story is elegantly simple and doesn’t mess about, all taking place in less than 24 hours and with Douglas’s determination to get his prisoner onto the final train of the day providing a ticking clock. There’s a thrill in seeing this man commit to his task with laser focus and steely resolve, like the Terminator with a badge. "You, you're breaking the law!" one cowardly citizen splutters at our hero. "I am the law!" the Marshall spits back. (The creators of 2000 AD's ‘Judge Dredd’ were clearly taking notes.)

All in all, while LAST TRAIN FROM GUN HILL may not be one of Sturges’s better known efforts, it’s a compelling tale with suspense to spare that can hold its head up high among its more celebrated peers.

Four stars out of five.

Valid use of the word ‘last’?  Absolutely: the film literally ends with the train pulling away.

What would a movie called FIRST TRAIN FROM GUN HILL be about?  A lot more on what Douglas got up to on the journey into the town. The newspaper crossword puzzle, maybe? Did they have them back then?

Previously:  I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER

Next time:  THE LAST MAN ON EARTH

Check out my books:  Jonathanlastauthor.com