SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS

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Alexander Mackendrick (director of “The Ladykillers”) may have been of British descent, but his quick-paced 1957 sardonic drama — about the symbiotic relationship between a decadent Manhattan newspaper showbiz columnist and a hungry press agent — captures America’s indulgence in greed, corruption, and aggression like none other. Drawing on the noir style and subject matter of Billy Wilder’s perfect “Ace in the Hole” (1952) “black political drama” would be a suitable moniker for the dark pitch of cynical social satire that “Sweet Smell of Success” examines, rather than the “film noir” attribution that it frequently attracts. Here lies the defective foundation of the American Dream as viewed from an American viewpoint (Burt Lancaster’s company produced the film).

The story takes place during a day and a half in the life of its New York City characters. Fey toady press agent Sidney Falco (Tony Curtis) is in the doghouse with his Walter Winchell-type gossip columnist mentor-and-abuser JJ Hunsecker (emphasis on the second “J”). Mackendrick’s ravenous camera moves through Manhattan’s late '50s Broadway theater district on a nocturnal quest for truth.

According to JJ, the frequently groveling Sidney is not responding quickly enough to JJ’s orders to rev up the rumor mill to break up a hot romance brewing between Hunsecker’s adult sister Susan (Susan Harrison) and a bland jazz guitarist named Steve Dallas (Martin Milner). Steve Dallas isn’t exactly the next Tal Farlow on guitar, but he’s earned Susan’s romantic devotion. JJ wants to shut the whole thing down with a smear-job on Steve Dallas that sticks. “Communist” is a convenient accusation. JJ’s incestuous emotions seethe in his sexually impotent [or bound] mind. Sidney is working through an imagined apprenticeship with JJ that he hopes will eventually lead to his mentor’s place. The latent homosexual dominant/submissive subtext that exists between the two men underscores JJ’s impotent but nonetheless incestuous desires for his sister. Trouble in mind; trouble in action.

Neither man has an ounce of ethics but both fake morals to mask their true devotion — to power and money. Sidney calls everybody “baby” or “sweetheart” to get what he wants for his master. He sees though JJ regardless of how beholden to him he is. Sidney tells his de facto boss, “JJ, you’ve got such contempt for people it makes you stupid.”

Based on a novella by former press agent Ernest Lehman (“Sabrina”) and adapted by Clifford Odets, the great leftist poet of Harold Clurman Group Theatre — “Sweet Smell of Success” exists in a self-loathing urban bourgeois stratosphere where a gossip columnist like JJ Hunsecker can make or break a career depending on whether or not he mentioned it in his column.

Burt Lancaster’s JJ Hunsecker is a nasty master manipulator, but he doesn’t know his limits — and he doesn’t care because he’s been rewarded so much and so long for his ruthless tactics. He’s irresponsible. JJ’s capacious power has blinded everyone, including him. Still, his days are numbered.

Neither the antagonist (JJ) nor the film’s (purposefully) falsely represented protagonist (Sidney) has any redeeming traits. They suffer ongoing degrees of retribution, but each will carry on in the prescribed despicable methods to which each is accustomed.

“ColeSmithey.com” flopped at the box office. It is in Time Magazine’s list as one of the top movies of all time.

Not Rated. 96 mins.

 

ONCE UPON A TIME IN... HOLLYWOOD

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Tarantino’s Gen X Ode to Hollywood Also-rans Dazzles and Disappoints

Quentin Tarantino has created a fetishistic cinematic grab-bag of self-referential filmic delights that soars more than it limps, but limp it does. That’s not to say there isn’t plenty of chewy suspense, jaw-dropping performances, lush and grotesque visuals, and music cues to die for. Los Angeles has never looked better on film.

Then there’s this film’s thousands-of-cameos cast, each one bringing his or her A-game to the set. Spot if you can Dakota Fanning, Luke Perry, Michael Madsen, Clifton Collins Jr., Scoot McNairy, or Timothy Olyphant.

Yes this movie is a pure freaking joy.

Repeated viewings are all but mandatory. There are exquisite car driving sequences that transport you to a place in Cinema you didn’t know existed. “Once Upon A Time” contains a delicious treasure trove of juicy narrative details to relish even if the film doesn’t work as well as intended. The movie doesn’t earn its phantasmagoric climax of violence. An inexcusable burst of voice-over narration poops the pool. One more edit could elevate this film from an A- to an A. There is no such thing as a perfect movie.  Tarantino seems to accept this as fact for his own idyllic creation.

Satirically, this is Quentin Tarantino’s most personal movie for a host generational reasons. Thematic onion-layers of pop culture references run deep, wide, and continuous. The fantasy is set during the looming cataclysmic moment of the 1969 Charles Manson murders that upended Hollywood culture and put a final nail in the fight-the-subjugation-of-the-man hippie movement that helped fuel Cinema movements such as Blaxploitation and Grindhouse.

Revenge is a prominent motivating value at play. ‘50s and ‘60s American television and movies taught its citizens to kill, and kill they did. At least, that’s one trenchant dig that one of Tarantino’s theme-speaking characters articulates before this film’s inevitable bloodletting begins. Tarantino rubs his critics’ noses in the dirt, and leaves the audience to contemplate a coup de grace of Grand Guignol spectacle that hits you in the guts. How numb to violence have we become as a society? You’ll get a quiz when you see this movie. If you want gratuitous violence, you’ll get your fill.

Sexual politics of the era goes under a microscope. You learn a lot about a man by the blowjob he refuses. Dig the cool vibe of Brad Pitt's and Leonardo DiCaprio's characters' airtight bromance. Their overflowing joy at playing Tarantino's dynamic comic creations is infectious. Neither actor has ever been so undeniably exquisite.

Right wing capitalist forces that paid ‘50s and ’60s era television to do questionable stuff like sell cigarettes to kids, are skewered within the context of the culture. Tarantino isn’t complaining. He’s telling it like it is/was from a kid who ate up every bit of an American culture that celebrated Bruce Lee, Evel Knievel, Clint Eastwood, and James Bond knock-offs (check out Richard Johnson in “Deadlier Than The Male,” the film that Tarantino screened on the beach in Cannes when he helmed the Palme d’ Or jury in 2004).

The maverick behind “Reservoir Dogs” takes a metaphoric approach to epochal cultural shifts that upended careers and realities overnight in a deceptively fragile Hollywood ecosystem. Poking fun at lazy actors, passionate directors, and even Bruce Lee, comes with the landscape of filtering American television and movie values of the era into a thematically and satirically rich movie. I dare say there is ten times more thematic and narrative detail in this film compared to any other that Hollywood has produced so far this year. Here is a lovingly prepared filmic buffet of entertainment influences that Tarantino digs for all of their silly and frequently perverse associations.

There’s a great party scene where Damian Lewis’s Steve McQueen points out Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie) to a fellow partier, before switching his attention to Tate’s former fiancé Jay Sebring (Emile Hirsh). McQueen goes on to explain how Sebring still follows Tate around even though she broke off her engagement with him to become engaged to Roman Polanski. McQueen “never had a chance,” but he wanted one. Audiences into such Hollywood mythologies can chew on things like the famous actor who got away with killing his wife, Natalie. Enter Leonardo DiCaprio as television western series “Bounty Law” leading man Cliff Booth to chew scenery like toothpicks. Check out the actual ‘50s television series “Wanted Dead or Alive” with Steve McQueen for backstory.

Al Pacino delivers the film’s inciting incident in a hilarious comic turn playing talent manager Marvin Schwarzs. The bespectacled Mr. Schwarzs gives Cliff a head-spinning wakeup call about the terrible fate of Cliff’s fading career. Playing bad guys on a string of TV shows is a dead end. Whether or not Cliff heads to Italy to make spaghetti westerns with second tier directors, his days are numbered. The truth hits Cliff like a ton of bricks, but his longtime stuntman and personal assistant Rick Dalton (Brad Pitt) isn’t rattled by the inevitable demise of his bread-and-butter, namely Cliff Booth.

 “Once Upon A Time In…Hollywood” is not Quentin Tarantino’s best film; it may not be his worst, that distinction goes to “Jackie Brown,” but this is his most flawed, possibly even knowingly, if not intentionally. You need grit to make a pearl. 

Like Bob Dylan or Elvis Costello, Quentin Tarantino has always stayed ahead of culture. Hypernormalisation is catching up. Cliff Booth can’t make the transition from television to film that some of his peers have successfully done. This film comes at a time when Cinema is dying, if it isn’t already deceased.

Movie theaters are closing at a rapid rate because American culture has changed. Audiences don’t know how to act in theaters anymore. There’s always someone turning on a cell phone, or as was the case with the screening I attended, can’t be quiet for more than 40 seconds at a time before verbally commenting on the action on the screen. Hollywood is its own worst enemy. Making endless superhero franchise flicks aimed at 10-year-olds is burying the industry in its own filth. By that standard, "Once Upon a Time in...Hollywood" is a shining example of how different things could be.

Rated R. 161 mins.

 

THE BRINK

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Documentarian Alison Klayman (“Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry”) brilliantly contextualizes Steve Bannon’s bizarre racist mission within the many coded ways the right-wing fascist ideologue expresses his murderous subtext to politicians (see Nigel Farage), billionaires (see Blackwater’s Erik Prince and Guo Media’s Miles Kwok), hack journalists, sycophantic fans, television interviewers, and during personal interactions.

It says a lot about a man by those who he admires; in Bannon’s case most such icons (seemingly) have direct links to the Nazi regime. Indeed, Bannon goes out of his way to put a fine point on his love affair with Hitler’s genocide of the Jews.

Klayman opens the film with Bannon chugging a Red Bull while going over “spots” (shorthand for Bannon’s ongoing television media propaganda campaign) over the phone with an unnamed associate.

“You talk about culture being upriver in politics; this is the way you make a statement. I’ll see you at five o’clock and I’ll feed you dinner.”

Cut to Bannon bragging about “Torchbearer,” the 2016 “documentary” he directed. Oh yes, Steve Bannon is a director and producer. Check out his IMDB page, it will give you an idea Bannon’s obsessions. Shocker, Bannon executive produced the Sean Penn written/directed “The Indian Runner.” Still, Bannon can’t bring himself to remember his film’s proper title, “The Torchbearer,” or “Torchbearers,” or …

The subject brings up filming that Bannon did in Auschwitz.

“My shit in Auschwitz rocked.”

This weird, out-of-context statement reflexively begs the question, does Bannon think Hitler also “rocked” Auschwitz? Evidently so. Bannon’s profane scatological reference is the needle that punctures the mind of the listener as Bannon normalizes his audience to his objectively racist beliefs that he carefully masks behind a sleepy-eyed gauze of overt respect and appreciation the Nazi death camps (Auschwitz-Birkenau).

Visually excited, Bannon nods his head with praise.

“We leave for Birkenau. This gets to the punchline of the story. I look around and I turn around in the chair and I go, “Man, I said, this is the most haunting place I think I’ve ever been. It’s something about this. This actually is the feeling I thought I was going to feel in Auschwitz.

And he (the guide) goes, ”Oh everybody says that.” Bannon breaks into a laugh and shakes his head like a puppy.

“And I go, What are you talking about?”

And he goes, “Oh no, no, no.” He goes, “Maybe I didn’t explain it.”

“He said, “Auschwitz was a Polish cavalry college. The Germans just requisitioned it immediately. That was like the beta site (test); this was made from scratch.”

Bannon raises his finger to make the point, “German industrial design. He says, “The whole thing’s perfect.”

“I’m walking around going oh my God. It’s precision engineering to the nth degree. By Mercedes, then Krupp, and Hugo Boss. It is a (sic) institutionalized industrial compound for mass murder.”

“Here it finally hits you that — think about it, good people back in Germany were sitting at their desks drawing, and having arguments, and meetings. This thing was so planned and so engineered — down to perfection; you could see the conference meetings. You could see all the cups of coffee, and all the meetings, and all the argument. There were actually people who sat and thought through this whole thing and totally detached themselves from, you know, the moral horror of it. That’s when you realize, oh my God, humans can actually do this. Humans that are not devils, but humans that are just humans.”

Bannon’s dog whistle works on a handful of signifiers that he employs 24/7. He thinks he’s doing the "Lord’s work.” He may as well have LOVE and HATE tattooed across the knuckles of his hands. His disarming Virginia accent, folky linguistic style, compulsive physical mannerisms, unshaven ruddy face, unkempt overlong hair, outlier habit of always wearing two button-down shirts (usually under a hunting field jacket), all come into sharp focus under Alison Klayman's close eye.

Steve Bannon knowingly embodies the banality of evil. We watch Bannon weaponize words such as “Deplorables,” and “Populism and Economic Nationalism” (i.e. “military and economic patriotism which inclines us to the side of pervasive national defense.” —William Safire).

To view “The Brink” is to get a peek behind office doors at private meetings of right wing radicals from far and wide intent on spreading hate, greed, and brutality through political and corporate means. In order to defeat your enemy, you must know him. Alison Klayman’s brilliant documentary gives you plenty to chew on.

Not Rated. 91 mins.