BRIDGET JONES'S BABY

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You know you’re in trouble when momentary flashbacks from previous films in a franchise make you wish you were watching one of them instead of the dreary cinematic rendering before your eyes.

It’s debatable which one’s holding up better — Colin Firth or his nine-years junior co-star Renee Zellweger, but watching Patrick Dempsey break character as a passive-aggressive third wheel is enough to turn your stomach. If you didn’t figure it out; Bridget won’t know which one is the dad until the baby is born and a DNA test can be done. Oh the problems of the upper class.

Bridget is none too saddened by the recent death of her former boytoy Daniel Cleaver (Hugh Grant), whose plane “went down in the bush.” She might be lonely, but Bridget’s female co-workers are busy with gangbangs and threesomes at handy dandy London sex clubs. Never mind, this movie doesn’t dare go there. Committee screenwriters Helen Fielding, Dan Mazer, and Emma Thompson would rather take their target audience of white-ladies-who-lunch on a foray into an imaginary music festival land of weekend glamping in yurts. Naturally, Bridget wears an all white outfit with six-inch spike heels. If you are male, and have made it this far in this review, you’re work here is done.

If, on the other hand you are a non-white female you will have your work cut out for you to not run for the restroom to vomit at the disgusting patronizing yet condescending tack this film takes in making romance seem like a dump you take after being constipated for five days.

Director Sharon Maguire (helmer on the franchise debut “Bridget Jones’s Diary”) — at least they got the punctuation right — spares no excuse to crank up the most obvious and outdated musical cues in the history of modern-day Hollywood. Sitting on the couch alone: cue “All By Myself.” Having a pity party for one: play “Jump Around.” What would a party scene be without “Gangnam Style”? And the musical atrocities go on, and on, and on, and on, and on. Don’t believe me? Well, there’s “Fuck You” (by Lily Allen) during a fit of pique. And what cheesy rom-com would be complete without “I Heard It Through the Grapevine” paired with “Up Where We Belong.” Talk about on-the-nose telegraphing, it’s like a nervous tic.

And, why a baby? With a movie as stillborn as this one, there’s no point in trying to pretend humor. There is not one joke, pratfall, or line of dialogue that will induce even a brief smile. If you’re 60, white, and female, you’ll chuckle for no good reason, but you already do that anyway. I’m sure the screenwriters laughed plenty at their own not-funny jokes. For the rest of us, there is no boredom less compelling than sitting through this irredeemable piece of cinematic trash.

Rated R. 122 mins.

 

 

BABY FACE — CLASSIC FILM PICK

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In podcast episode #17 of LA GRANDE BOUFFE (THE BIG FEAST), the great Thelma Adams joins Mike and I to discuss "Baby Face," an amazing Pre-Code film staring Barbara Stanwyck. while drinking MAUI BREWING SWELL IPA.

Based on a story written by Hollywood studio maverick Darryl F. Zanuck (head of 20^th Century Pictures), co-screenwriters Kathryn Scola and Gene Markey create a satirical exploitation picture teeming with social currency. This politically challenging piece of dramaturgy could have come straight from New York’s Group Theatre, whose lead playwright Clifford Odets incited theatre audiences of the era with activist plays such as “Waiting for Lefty.”

Darryl Zanuck was on a career tear with a string of successes when he wrote “Baby Face,” which Warner Brothers and Vitaphone produced. The Jazz Singer (1927), The Public Enemy (1931), and I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932) were all Zanuck-produced films.

With its outré sensibilities around sexual power wielded by a woman, “Baby Face” (1933) became a lightening rod for the Hays Code, which effectively blocked [empowered] female characters from appearing in American movies once the policy took hold on July 1, 1934. Although the code was created in 1929, no heed was given to it until ’34.

Barbara Stanwyck is off the charts as a streetwise woman from Erie, Pennsylvania whose father has turned their home into a speakeasy and brothel, featuring Lily as a combination of man-pleasing waitress and prostitute. Stanwyck’s confidence as her character melds with her utter mastery of acting craft.

“Baby Face” is possibly the only film in the canon of American cinema where a father (played by a cigar-chomping Robert Barrat) pimps out his own daughter. Still, Lily doesn’t pull any punches when a customer’s advances are unwanted, regardless of his social standing. A local politician gets a cup of hot coffee poured him, as well as a bottle to the head when he comes on strong after following her into her bedroom.

Lily’s conscious adjustment of attitude and ambition comes from Cragg (Alphonse Ethier), a Swedish Nietzsche-quoting cobbler who briefly mentors Lily after her father’s untimely death. Gragg advises Lily to use her sexual power over men to get what she wants. “You must be a master, not a slave,” he tells her. Gregg goes on to read from Nietzsche’s “The Will to Power.”

“All life, no matter how we idealize it, is nothing more nor less than exploitation.”

Lily takes to the cobbler’s advice like a fish to water. In Stanwyck’s subtle facial expression we see the penny drop.

It’s telling that for years the only available version of “Baby Face” was one that edited out this scene’s trenchant ideological dialogue. Even so, the film’s thematic-reversing climax reneges on Nietzsche’s position by valuing sentimentality over calculated ambition.

Director Alfred E. Green graphically presents Lily’s climb up the corporate ladder with exterior shots of the bank building’s high-rise walls on whose windows are painted with the title of each branch. Lily works her way up from the filing department to the accounting department and on, leaving behind her the men whose lives she has ruined, some more so than others.

A key character element comes though Lily’s fluid ability to learn on the job. She is never anything less than good at each position she ascends to. Moralists of the day would surely have called Lily a slut, but Stanwyck’s Lily proves smarter than anyone she comes into contact with — man or woman. Regardless of how morally superior every corporate man she meets, pretends to be, it’s always a front to get what they want, sex from Lily.

Lily’s transition from lower class tramp to high society dame succeeds via Orry-Kelly’s sensual, if extravagant, costume designs. Ever the master of dramatic beats, Stanwyck works every thread of the enticing dresses and furs she wears as if she were born in them. Lily transforms into a goddess for the audience to worship.

The film’s closing moral message is as right wing as they come. Patriarchal advice proves reliably flawed, no matter the validity of its philosophical intention.    

America Cinema has seldom witnessed such a powerful self-possessed capitalist as Lily. Here is a blatant affront to generations of American provincial female teachings that value virginity over sexual freedom. Lily likes giving it away, for a cause — herself. The men are only too happy to pay without even being asked.

Not Rated. 73 mins.

 

LISTEN TO ME MARLON

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Though encumbered by a bland title, Stevan Riley’s profoundly intimate first-person telling of Marlon Brando’s life is indispensable. The key to this brilliant documentary’s success derives from its nearly exclusive use of personal audio interview recordings of conversations with a man widely considered to be one of the greatest actors who ever lived.

A from-the-horse’s-mouth conceit delivers a pristine explanation of Brando’s articulate intellect, heart, and alternately blessed and tragic existence. Brando is nothing if not eloquent, candid, and revealing. He’s also lecherous to a fault. You’ve not seen flirting until you see what transpires between Brando and his female interviewers. Neither Sinatra nor Elvis had Brando’s hot-burn charisma. There would be no Al Pacino or Robert DeNiro if not for Marlon Brando.

Listening to his strangely melodious voice has a calming effect. Here is a craftsman on a constant search for beauty and some amount of human justice.  

Thoughtful use of clips from many of Brando’s films gives proof to the actor’s embrace of Stella Adler’s Stanislavsky-inspired method approach to acting. Rare clips of Stella Adler discussing the craft and its application takes on a personal dimension when it’s revealed that Adler opened her home to Brando in preparation for launching his career.

Brando discusses studying people’s personalities from a cigar shop on 42nd Street and Broadway, imagining the secrets they struggle to hide. He describes his inferiority complex, a symptom of the abuse he suffered at the hands of his cruel alcoholic father. He calls himself a sensitive person. Brando’s meticulous approach to acting explodes with curiosity about exotic cultures, such as in Tahiti where he found paradise.

The movie has a wealth of visually interesting aspects, such as a computer-generated depiction of Brando, for which he modeled his voice and face. The weird sequences of computer-Brando talking add to the film’s haunting effect.

The filmmakers frame the carefully edited biographical narrative against the moment when Marlon’s son Christian shot and killed his half-sister Cheyenne’s boyfriend (Dag Drollet) while staying with their mother and father at his Beverly Hills estate. When reporters question him after his son is sentenced to 10-years in prison, Brando is too emotionally broken up to talk. For all of the power and charisma that Marlon Brando’s name encouraged, he is consistently as down to earth a [sounding] person as you could ever hope to meet.

“Listen to me Marlon” gives you the sense of casually hanging out with Marlon Brando over a period of years as he describes his complicated life and career. It is an unforgettable experience.

Not Rated. 103 mins.