One Day (2011)

Supposedly, there's a mini-series of this on Netflix released this year. I saw the movie version  in 2011, and I wrote about it at the time of the film's release.

"July 15ths with Emma and Dex"
or
"Same Time Next Year"

Can a man and woman "just" be friends? (the question posed by When Harry Met Sally)  I've gone 'round and 'round with this one. I've said "Yes" for many years, and then that became "No," then back to "Yes," and now, it's something of a toss-up. "It's possible," I say noncommittally (which is the basis for many of the male-female problems, friendship or no).

But anything is possible.

 
"One Day" was a nifty best-seller by David Nicholls, smart, tight and funny, a romance told in snap-shots of one day that was realistic about the vagaries of life and love and the "yin" and "yang" of both. What makes the novel special gets distilled somewhat in celluloid form, making One Day feel a bit less exceptional, the humor muted somewhat, and given the twenty year time-span of the movie, some of the anniversaries celebrated are given short shrift, skipping to the more complicated "good parts," as opposed to those years when nothing much happens...you know, like "life."*

Dexter (Jim Sturgess) and Emma (Anne Hathaway) have "just met" at their graduation as they string along with their mutual friends, a couple. Emma is bookish, unstylish, a bit of a character—has a "nice personality"—Dexter is boyishly handsome and knows it, and Emma is "crushing." An awkward "overnight" happens, where it is unclear what transpired, but it's important enough that Dexter is helping Emma move when the next 15th of July occurs, but not important enough that Dexter isn't moving to Paris to teach.

July's come and July's go, as Emma suffers through waitressing at a London Tex-Mex restaurant and Dexter jumps from job to job, eventually becoming  the smarmy host for a late-night dance teen program. Where Emma is a busy bee, droning through know-where jobs until she catches her big break, Dex is a moth attracted to the brightest (or blondest) thing in the room. They're devoted to each other, but only so far. As her star rises, his sets—first Mom (the ever-reliable Patricia Clarkson) dies of cancer, then his fortunes go South, followed by years of over-indulgence. Before you can say "This is Mrs. Norman Maine," he is seeking her out, where she has nearly given up. As traditional as this is, what is nice about One Day is that Emma does just fine without him, she makes her way in the world without a man's help (and frequently, they're a hindrance), whereas in most films of the romantic genre, everything can be solved by anything in pants.

The director, Lone Scherfig, previously made An Education, which, while well-acted and elegantly directed, suffered from a distinct lack of heat and a little too much posh. The former problem still applies here. The film is decidedly chilly in tone, and while this is a welcome change from the day-glo color, syrupy music rom-coms that chirp incessantly about Moon, June, (premarital) Honeymoon," poking you in the heart-area that "Love is Great, right? RIGHT?" One Day makes it hard to feel anything beyond "Gee...that sucks."

Maybe it's the skipping around from year to year, but there's a distinct lack of focus in the story, as it spreads itself around a bit too thin, the ancillary characters populating the movie to make life difficult for Emma and Dexter, necessary irritants and bothers that will drive them into each other's arms every year. Plus, the story arcs of the two main characters run precipitously up and down, without any jolts of happiness amidst the gloom, or hurdles to happiness on the ascent.**

Things settle down as people "settle" and, although One Day manages to avoid many of the cliches of the romantic genre, it also hasn't found anything as compelling to replace them. Plus, with the mutual reversals of fortune, there seems to be a dramatically required "leveling of the playing field" in order for things to resolve "the way they should".

One should be grateful that one is asking these questions about a romance movie (haven't done that in a while), so it's nice to see somebody making the attempt. But, one gets the idea that the same old "Love Potion No.9" is being hawked. All they've done is change the shape of the bottle.

* One of my favorite quotes is by Anton Chekhov: Any idiot can survive a crisis; it's the day-to-day living that wears you down.

**  Well, that's not entirely true, but we don't want to give anything away. 

American Masters

PBS is airing another of their great "American Masters" series—this one on director Blake Edwards.

 

And I gotta say, for merely an hour-long look at the guy and his career, it's pretty darned comprehensive—chock-full of generous clips from films, talking heads observations from family, friends, and admirers...with liberal commentary by Julie Andrews. A lot of stuff I knew from watching every movie the man did—and here's the "Now I've Seen Everything, Dept." article proving it—but quite a bit I didn't. I knew that many of his comedies utilized a lot of improvisation, but hadn't realized that the later movie, That's Life!, that was practically a home movie featuring family and friends filmed at his own house and was Edwards' idea of "an independent film," was also largely improvised. The guy took risks. And big swings.

 

It's a lovely package, which has a lot of the Edwards "style" to it, with some great animated sequences and much credit to his collaborators. I've put up the trailer—that gives a taste of what it's like—below.

 

And for awhile, you can probably find it on the PBS web-site.

Don't Make a Scene (Redux): A Fistful of Dollars

Sorry for the delay. I was preparing another of those "Don't Make a Scene" posts based on one of the old Premiere Magazine "Classic Scene" features—and worked on it for quite some time to completion—only to realize...that I'd already done it!

Damn! I hate it when that happens. I don't like things getting by me.

Like the fact that I've been doing this blog for over 10 years now and have done nothing...nothing!...to celebrate it.

Well, let's make like a Clint Eastwood gun-man and kill two birds with one stone. Here's a "Redux" of the very first "Don't Make a Scene" from here. In the piece I mention that there would be a follow-up—the book-end of sorts—to this and quite a few other of Eastwood's "Last Man Standing" shoot-outs, and you can find that one here.

The Story: "You makin' some kinda joke?"

 

Yeah, not so's you'd notice.

This week, Blogging by Cinema-light will be looking at the directorial career of Clint Eastwood, but we will book-end that with a semi-consistent curiosity in the actor's career that appeared in his first starring role, popped up throughout many of his films, and ended in what was supposed to be the actor's last starring role. The first awaits you here. The "last" will be next Sunday. 

"The Big Joke" in the films starring Clint Eastwood is the one that leaves one man standing. You start with Eastwood's hero of-a-sort standing alone against a clutch of targets and mowing them down without so much as a scratch to his instigator. The genesis of this ploy (as was the basic plot of A Fistful of Dollars) is Akira Kurosawa's Yojimbo,* and the sequence where Toshiro Mifiune's masterless ronin takes on a handful of samurai and economically dispatches them in the street (see the video below)—A Fistful of Dollars even uses the capping joke to the local undertaker. It's an improbable circumstance, but one that became accepted in Leone's films and in so many of the films Eastwood chose to participate in, no matter the director, be it Hollywood veteran or Eastwood himself, whether in a western or an urban crime drama. The trick is always to explain it, if one feels the need (the lazy slo-mo fall-back was that, well, it's Eastwood, of course he always bowls a strike, gun-fight-wise) whether it be a distraction, terrain, or that Eastwood's character is the one most cussedly unafraid in the circumstance—as was the case in Unforgiven.

Even the first shoot-out in Dirty Harry—a variation on this scene, adjusted for urban sprawl and scattered bank-robbers—also ends with a joke that the other guy doesn't get. The joke is that Harry doesn't keep track of the shots he's fired, so he's going to give the downed robber a "chance" to fight it out. But, the joke is: the robber never had a chance...ever. Harry's out of bullets. But he intimidates the guy into thinking he might. That's why the laugh after he squeezes off an empty chamber. You lose, pal. You were always going to lose one way or another...because you chose to rob that bank. The Eastwood protagonist always knows he'll triumph, either because he's better armed, better prepared, or because he knows something his opponents don't know—he has the fore-thought of the outcome that he will make reality. That idea runs throughout the many uneven shoot-outs throughout the director-actor's career right up until what he declared would be his last starring role**—in 2008's Gran Torino—the one film where he loses the battle, but, true to form, it is all part of the plan.

Part of the Sergio Leone design of this scene (which looks big and obvious but is defined by small details) is the "Huh?" factor. Notice when Eastwood's Joe first enters the shot that there is no one visible on the balcony. And Joe starts speaking out loud, like a crazy person. But once Joe leaves the frame, Leone cuts to the balcony to reveal Rojo standing behind one of the balcony's pillars, then moving across the balcony to get a better view of Joe's demonstration. The presence of Rojo was known all the time, which is why now Joe goes out into the street to confront his attackers, under-promising, but over-delivering.

So, here's the first. "Now I've Seen Everything: Clint Eastwood" arrives this week. We'll cap it off next Sunday.

The Set-Up: Joe (Clint Eastwood) has just wandered into town, looking for work. After been shot out from under his mule by three of Sheriff Baxter's men, he finds out from local gossips that the town is run by two warring factions, and his reaction is "There may be some money to be made in this town." He sets off to show off his talents, using the men who had shot at him earlier.

Action!

JOE: Don Miguel Rojo, I wanna talk to you.

JOE: Don Miguel, I hear you're hiring on men. Well, I might just be available.

JOE: I gotta tell ya before you hire me... 

JOE: I don't work cheap.

JOE: Get three coffins ready. 

PIRIPERO: Well...Huh? 

BAXTER GUNMAN 1: Adios, amigo. 

BAXTER GUNMAN 1: Listen, stranger, didn't you get the idea? We don't like to see bad boys like you in town. 

BAXTER GUNMAN 1: Go get your mule. 

BAXTER GUNMAN 1: You let him get away from you? (Laughs)

JOE: Y'see, that's what I want to talk to you about. He's feelin'... 

JOE: ...real bad. 

BAXTER GUNMAN 1: Huh? 

JOE: My mule. You see, he got all riled up when you went and fired those shots at his feet. 

BAXTER GUNMAN 2: Hey, are you makin'... 

BAXTER GUNMAN 2: ...some kinda joke?
JOE: Mm-mm. No. y'see, I understand you were playing around. 

JOE: But the mule, 

JOE: ...he just doesn't get it. 

JOE:  'course, if you were all to apologize... 

 (Laughs)

(Laughs)

JOE: I don't think it's nice, you laughin'. 

JOE: Y'see, my mule don't like people laughin'. Gets the crazy idea you're laughin' at him. 

JOE: Now, if you apologize, like I know you're going to,

JOE: ...I might...

JOE: ...convince him...

JOE: ...that you really didn't mean it. 

SHERIFF JOHN BAXTER: I saw the whole thing. You killed all four of them.

SHERIFF: You will pay, all right. You will be strung up.

JOE: Who are you?

SHERIFF: Don't fire a shot. 

SHERIFF: I'm John Baxter - Sheriff.

JOE: Yeah. Well, if you're the sheriff, you better get these men underground. 

JOE: My mistake. Four coffins. 

A Fistful of Dollars

Words by Victor Andres Catena, Adriano Balzoni, Sergio Leone, Fernado Di Leo, Duccio Tessari, Jaime Comas Gil, Tonino Valerii (after Akira Kurosawa and Ryuzo Kikushima).

Pictures by Massimo Dallamo and Sergio Leone.

A Fistful of Dollars is available on DVD and Blu-Ray from M-G-M Home Video. 

* Yojimbo, it turns out, wasn't wholly original, either, as Kurosawa took the basic plot from American Dashiell Hammett's novel "Red Harvest" (that novel's protagonist "The Continental Op" is also a "man with no name") and transposed it to feudal Japan. The American release of Leone's film was pushed back to 1967, after Kurosawa successfully sued, winning 15% of Fistful's gross.  According to IMDB, Kurosawa made more money from this remake than he did on his original film.  

** Well, that's what he said, anyway. He then broke his promise by starring in a colleague's directorial debut Trouble with the Curve, in return for past services rendered.