Flick of The Day: Glengarry Glen Ross

David Mamet was one of the great voices in American theatre in the late 70's and early 80's. As a playwright, he was a founding member of the legendary Atlantic Theatre Company, winning acclaim for his 1984 play Glengarry Glen Ross, which he adapted for the screen in this 1992 drama which is today's flick of the day. Mamet's writing is heavy in dialogue which is itself fast paced and peppered with scatological language, and it reeks of the stage. However it is the kind of rich language that draws the best out of actors. Apart from his theatrical work, he has a rich body of film work with particular highlights being his Oscar winning script for The Verdict and The Untouchables.

Glengarry Glen Ross

A simple tale of the goings on behind the scenes at a real estate office in Chicago, this film has an ensemble cast of some of the best acting talent in recent memory. Al Pacino is cocky top salesman Ricky Roma, Jack Lemmon is the ageing salesman living on past glories, Alan Arkin and Ed Harris are disgruntled and desperate while Kevin Spacey is the much put upon office manager. In a role created for the film, Alec Baldwin steals the film as a hard nosed motivational speaker. Times are hard at Premiere Properties with the pressure on the salesmen to deliver land sales in a downturn. They bitch and moan about the leads they are given and generally fail to sell apart from the big swinging dick Ricky Roma. The plot centres around a theft at the office but ultimately this is a character study of men under pressure, with a tense atmosphere reminiscent of something like 12 Angry Men.

Perhaps the strength of James Foley's direction is to keep the camera moving around the theatre like sets, to make this feel less like a play. It is not fully successful however as you can't really escape the origins of the tale. Mamet's dialogue is his greatest strength but it often feel over the top and almost unrealistic here. That said, it is terribly enjoyable to see greats like Pacino and Lemmon and Spacey chew through the scenery in capital lettered verbiage. 

Blake: You got leads. Mitch & Murray paid good money. Get their names to sell them. You can't close the leads you're given, you can't close shit, *you are* shit, hit the bricks pal, and beat it, 'cause you are going *out*. 

Shelley Levene: The leads are weak. 

Blake: "The leads are weak." The fucking leads are weak? You're weak. I've been in this business fifteen years... 

Dave Moss: What's your name? 

Blake: Fuck you. That's my name. 

[Moss laughs] 

Blake: You know why, mister? 'Cause you drove a Hyundai to get here tonight, I drove an eighty thousand dollar BMW. *That's* my name.

A tour de force then, but also a dark look at the harsh realities of the working world and the lengths people will go to, to survive. Lemmon's salesman is a loser but at heart a good family man while Pacino's Roma is a slimy charlatan yet one is a failure and the other prospers. There is a morality tale in there somewhere. 

Very much a character study, this is worth seeing if only for Mamet's dialogue and the excellent performances from the ensemble cast. It couldn't be called a compelling drama for very little happens but for sharp dialogue and tense well acted scenes, this is hard to beat. 

Flick of The Day: The Great Escape

Some subjects and events in history have been explored so many times in various guises throughout the history of cinema, that one would imagine that there is nothing more that could be added by yet another film on the topic. The Second World War is surely one such topic, having been a staple of Hollywood from its inception to at least the mid 1960's followed by a mini-revival in the 90's. There are too many fine films on the War to list here but some highlights would include The Longest Day, Saving Private Ryan, and today's flick of the day, The Great Escape.

The Great Escape

From director John Sturges, this is one of the classics of the genre. With an ensemble cast of some of the biggest actors of the day, this is an old school adventure tale of the highest order. The Germans as is their wont have spent a small fortune capturing various allied prisoners of war and irritated at their continuous attempts to escape decides to dump all the bad eggs in one basket, from which there will be no escape. There is the Americans; Steve McQueen as a pilot with a penchant for motorcycle stunts and a bit of a rebel and James Garner as a man who can acquire things inside the prison. The British; led by Richard Attenborough, a gentleman with a steely resolve. An Australian, played by James Coburn and a Pole played by Charles Bronson who excels in digging tunnels. Together they plot an escape by digging three tunnels out of the camp. The film is an action packed adventure culminating in  an attempted mass escape.

Treated with contempt by critics upon its release, it is only in recent years that the film has been reappraised as the classic it is. From the motorcycle stunts attempted by McQueen which had never been seen on the big screen before then to the groundbreaking way in which it manages to handle a fundamentally tragic tale with warmth and a good deal of humour, this was a far superior film to others of its era like The Battle of the Bulge or The Guns of Navarone. It has one of the great ensemble casts in terms of male actors of the era, including a cultural icon in perhaps his most iconic role, Steve McQueen. This is not to mention the fantastic work by less starry names of British cinema like Donald Pleasence and David McCallum. This is a film with an emphasis on action rather than dialogue but there are some memorable quotable lines in there.

Sedgwick: Danny, do you speak Russian? 

Danny: A little, but only one sentence. 

Sedgwick: Well, let me have it, mate. 

Danny: Ya vas lyublyu. 

Sedgwick: Ya ya vas... 

Danny: Lyublyu. 

Sedgwick: Lyubliu? Ya vas lyubliu. Ya vas lyublyu. What's it mean? 

Danny: I love you. 

Sedgwick: Love you. What bloody good is that? 

Danny: I don't know, I wasn't going to use it myself.

Based on a true account from a former POW, the film amends a few details but is largely historically accurate apart from increasing the importance of the American involvement which is no surprise in an American film. If there is one criticism of the film, coming in at nearly 3 hours, it does feel overlong. That said, a rainy afternoon can be easily batted away by catching this on TV. A classic adventure film with a great ensemble cast, this is well worth a look.

Flick of The Day: L.A Confidential

The work of American novelist James Ellroy is notoriously hard to adapt for the screen, written as it is in short staccato sentences with dense plotting involving numerous strands and characters. This is its strength as fiction but obviously harder to carry onto the big screen. If this in done badly, you get a flop like Brian De Palma's The Black Dahlia, if done well, you get today's flick of the day, L.A Confidential one of the best films of the 1990's and a multiple Oscar winner.

L.A. Confidential

Apart from a great script from director Curtis Hanson and Brian Helgeland which successfully reduces the scope of Ellroy's novel while still retaining the core story, the other main strength of this movie is a cast to die for. Russell Crowe is a violent yet good hearted Detective Bud White, James Cromwell is his Machiavellian commanding officer, Captain Dudley Smith. Guy Pearce is Edmund Exeley an up and coming strait laced star of the LAPD. Kevin Spacey, is Hollywood Jack Vincennes, an amoral cop to the stars. Kim Basinger is Lynn Bracken, a high class call girl whose career is managed by millionaire Pierce Morehouse Patchett, a brilliant turn from David Strathairn and finally Danny DeVito as the sleazy magazine editor Sid Hudgens.

Set in 1950s Los Angeles, the film opens on Christmas Eve when a group of drunken detectives attack some newly apprehended suspects in an event the press dub, "Bloody Christmas". Thereafter in an attempt to clean up the force, the top brass seek to prosecute the officers involved. Keen to move up, Exeley agrees to testify against his own colleagues, making him a hated figure while Bud White and Jack Vincennes refuse. The film then follows the rise and fall of these three detectives and their boss, Captain Smith. They become embroiled in the investigation of a shocking massacre at a late night coffee shop that may or may not involve organised crime. However all is not as it seems, and  an intricate plot leads to a great twisting conclusion involving drugs, prostitution and police corruption that goes to the very top. 

With a plot dense enough to match the great of the genre like Chinatown or The Big Sleep, this is a great detective yarn. Hanson has managed to perfectly capture the glamour and sleazy underbelly of post-war Los Angeles. Down to a tee, everything feels perfectly of the period in terms of fashion, decor and location. It sucks you into the period and tells a great story.The film received 9 Oscar nominations but lost in almost all categories due to the unstoppable juggernaut that was Titanic. It is shocking now to think that a film as poorly written and acted as Titanic outshone this picture but such are the unknowing ways of the Academy. One of the few awards it did win was for its screenplay, adapted as I've said by Hanson and Helgeland which is well deserved as the film is endlessly quotable.

Bud White: Merry Christmas. 

Lynn Bracken: Merry Christmas to you, officer. 

Bud White: That obvious, huh? 

Lynn Bracken: It's practically stamped on your forehead

This really is a must see film, combining a great cast with a fine script to produce a really old-fashioned actor driven movie, the kind that studios either don't want to make or are unable of making. They seem more and more interested in producing thrash in a 3D glaze with each passing day. I am no luddite and have never been against the use of advancing technology in cinema but it should not be at at the expense of basic storytelling. It is telling that this film lost out to effects driven schlock like Titanic, telling and disappointing. A great film.

Flick of The Day: The Paper

One of the real travesties of the information age has been the decline and fall of the daily newspaper. For so long, It was the source of news. Television news always had the sheen and soft focus of something in a daily battle for ratings but for genuine journalism, you couldn't beat print media in the eyes of most people. However with the rise of new media, the daily newspaper has struggled to identify its raison d'etre. Is it news or commentary? If the news in a daily paper is 24 hours old by the time it hits the news stands, what is the point of it? Today's film is an examination of a day in the life of a New York tabloid editor right at the end of the glory days in early '90s, right before the internet came and changed the game forever, The Paper.

The Paper

Michael Keaton leads an all star cast as Henry Hackett, the metro editor of the perennially struggling New York Sun. The film follows 24 hours in Henry's life and the life of the newspaper. The film flys along at a terrific pace in what turns out to be a momentous day for all involved. Henry has a big decision to make. He has an interview for a job at a much more upmarket paper, while trying to placate his heavily pregnant wife, the ever lovely Marisa Tomei. He is also locked in a battle with the upwardly mobile shrew Alicia, played with  a bitchy menace by Glenn Close over the direction of the paper and their coverage of a supposedly racially motivated killing in Brooklyn. Their boss, the editor, a chain smoking Robert Duvall gets some bad health news and attempts a reconciliation with his daughter. The paper's star columnist, played with a portentous lunacy by Randy Quaid spends most of the film hiding out in Henry's office for fear somebody is trying to kill him. If that wasn't enough star power, Jason Robards pops up as the paper's publisher. 

If the film has a failure, it is that there is often too much going on during the day however I suppose that is a reality of your average newsroom. The film lurches from one disaster to another but it makes for entertaining viewing and is at times genuinely funny. Some of the best one liners are left to Duvall's ageing editor, Bernie.

Phil: Aw, Jesus, Bernie. Come on with the smoke. You know the doctor found nicotine in my urine again. 

Bernie: Then keep your dick out of my ashtray.

The central fixation of the film is the dichotomy of chasing paper sales while also trying to tell the truth. After the murder of two white businessmen, two minority youths are arrested. Hackett learns that they didn't do it but can't get a source to prove it. Alicia feels they should go with a headline indicating guilt as they can't prove innocence. It plays out entertainingly and the acerbic back biting between the two is a joy to watch. The ending when it comes is thrilling and funny in equal measures.

The ensemble cast give some great performances, particularly Keaton as the intelligent and witty Editor capable of working anywhere but drawn to the madcap world of tabloid journalism, giving some wonderfully profane speeches.

Paul Bladden, New York Sentinel: Well, I hope you're satisfied, asshole! You just blew your chance to cover the world! 

Henry: Really? Well guess fucking what? I don't really fucking care. You wanna know fucking why? Because I don't fucking live in the fucking world! I live in fucking New York City! So go fuck yourself! 

[Henry slams down telephone back on the receiver]

All of the stock characters you might expect to find in a newsroom are there, the power hungry bitch, the ageing legend, the drunken columnist. This might irk some people but I found it oddly reassuring, giving the film a base in reality. Cliché's always a kernel of truth a their centre. 

Ultimately, this is a very enjoyable trip of a movie, ending where it begins with the ticking of a bedside clock radio and a radio news announcer signing off:

"Because your whole world can change in 24 hours"

Backed by a strong script and some fine performances, director Ron Howard has put together a little gem of a film that chronicles the ups and downs of an atypical news day married with the everyday difficulties of human life. It's funny and touching but always entertaining. A very enjoyable watch.

Flick of The Day: Sneakers

spyIt is strange how often film's can be of their time, existing only in the zeitgeist and seeming out of date very quickly. Some things age very well, comedies like Laurel & Hardy and Some Like It Hot are as funny today as they ever were while others age unfavourably, particularly anything involving technology unless there is a deeper message. Today's film is a high tech thriller from 1992, Sneakers, that has aged well for precisely this reason. It raises questions about the effect of technological advance on how we live rather then focusing on it.

Sneakers (Collector's Edition)

Possessed of a cast to die for and a great script, director Phil Alden Robinson makes good use of both. The cast reads like a who's who of some of the best talent of the last forty years; Robert Redford, Sidney Poitier, James Earl Jones, Ben Kingsley, David Strathairn, River Phoenix and Dan Aykroyd. The film opens with a prologue on a snowy University campus in December 1969. Two students are hacking into bank accounts and making illegal wire transfers from the likes of Richard Nixon to the likes of committee for the legalisation of marijuana. One of them, Martin played by Redford goes for Pizza while the other Cosmo, played Kingsley waits. The police come, Martin escapes while Cosmo is caught and sent to prison. Fast forward to now and Martin runs a private security contractor with his partners ably played by Poitier, Strathairn, Phoenix and Aykroyd.  He is approached by government agents who are aware of his true past and offer to clean his record if he obtains a little black box from a mathematician called Gunther Janik. Of course nothing is as it seems and the box turns out to be a very valuable piece of equipment that can break any code and any encryption.

The film raises some interesting questions about how much we as a society rely on computers and their encryption to manage our everyday lives. As Ben Kingsley's character puts it:

"There's a war out there, old friend. A world war. And it's not about who's got the most bullets. It's about who controls the information. What we see and hear, how we work, what we think... it's all about the information! "

This is as relevant if not more relevant today as it was then. With each passing day we become more reliant on technology. Almost all governmental records in relation to taxation, income, marriage are computerised with no paper record. The question the film poses is what if these records weren't as safe as we thought them. If anything could be accessed, what might the consequences be? 

"Pollution. Crime. Drugs, poverty, disease, hunger, despair - we throw GOBS of money at them and problems only get worse. Why is that? Because money's most powerful ability is to allow bad people to continue doing bad things at the expense of those who don't have it."

The film is a thriller at heart though and it delivers on this front. The attempt to steal the black box back from Cosmo is a highlight with some wonderfully tense moments to keep you involved. Perhaps the film's strongest suit is it ensemble cast. All of the main performers are likeable and Ben Kingsley is devilish as the bad guy with a twisted ideology. The interplay between the team is excellent with some funny sparring matches between Dan Aykroyd's conspiracy theorist and Sidney Poitier's ex-CIA agent.

In summary, this is a memorable film with an interesting story driven by some excellent performances. The film is greater then the sum of its parts and is rounded off nicely with a good ending. There is something enjoyable about the bad guys losing out at the expense of the good guys. Well worth a look.

Flick of The Day: The Royal Tenenbaums

Wes Anderson is the film making equivalent of Marmite, people either love or hate his work which is some of the most stylish in Hollywood today. All of his work from Rushmore to Fantastic Mr Fox are borne of the same unique style and idiosyncratic sense of humour. This creates a world in which Anderson can then tell the story, and as a viewer you either fall in love with his vision and design of the world or you don't. I would be in the former category.

The Royal Tenenbaums (The Criterion Collection)

The Royal Tenenbaums is perhaps Wes Anderson's most complete film. Combining one of his best scripts, written with Owen Wilson, with one of the great ensemble casts assembled in modern cinema. Gene Hackman, in one of his finest performances of a career filled with fine performances, is the family patriarch, Royal Tenenbaum, a feckless and conniving rogue who is estranged from his wife, the ever beautiful Anjelica Huston and his three "genius" children, Ben Stiller as Chas the business mogul, Gwyneth Paltrow as Margot the playwright and Luke Wilson as Richie the tennis pro. Add to this, Owen Wilson as a childhood friend of the Tenenbaums, Danny Glover and the always brilliant Bill Murray and you have a very fine cast, all who excel with Anderson's fine script.

Narrated by Alec Baldwin, the film is laid out like a novel, with chapters and a cast of characters. We learn of the three Tenenbaum children and their early success's and their later inability to adapt to the adult world, unhelped by the lack of a father figure with Royal estranged from the children. As part of his own machinations, Royal suddenly decides to take an interest in the family and attempts to worm his way back in to their hearts under the auspices of a terminal illness. Things work their way out in the end. Of course, there is a lot of humour along the way and the film's own personal style carries the tale along. When we meet the Tenenbaums as adults, they are a shadow of their former child genius selves. Gene Hackman has some of the best lines and steals most of the film.

[about Margot's play] 

Young Chas Tenenbaum: What'd you think, Dad? 

Royal: Didn't seem believable to me. 

[to Eli] 

Royal: Why are you wearing pajamas? Do you live here? 

Young Richie Tenenbaum: He has permission to sleep over. 

Young Chas Tenenbaum: Well, did you at least think the characters were well developed? 

Royal: What characters? There's a bunch of little kids dressed up in animal costumes. 

Young Margot Tenenbaum: Good night, everyone. 

Royal: Well, sweetie, don't get mad at me. That's just one man's opinion.

It's entertaining because Royal really is an irredeemable shit, and Hackman has great fun with the character aided by an excellent script. Its obvious that Anderson has a love for his characters and this shines throughout the film which is possessed of a warm heart. 

All in all, this is a great film with a stand out central performance from Gene Hackman aided by a fine ensemble cast and one of the best comedy scripts of the past ten years.  It pulls you into the unique world of the Tenenbaums and like all great films, you may not want to leave at the end. Anderson has never bettered this film though I still retain a soft spot for both The Life Acquatic and Fantastic Mr Fox.