In the Electric Mist: (2009. dir: Bertrand Tavernier) In the Philip Marlowe novels, Raymond Chandler managed to create a world in which the mass of humanity was darkly twisted and corrupt, where the apparently innocent were not innocent, where Marlowe retained a semblance of self-respect only by holding himself aloof and living strictly by a self-imposed code of honor. Although Marlowe himself often comes away from his adventures feeling unclean and depressed, we the readers do not; we are shielded from it by his stoicism and underplayed ironic humor, and most of all by the gorgeous poetry at the soul of him. This is all in tribute to Chandler, who was an undisputed master of his craft. His books never get old, and he, with Dashiell Hammett and a few others, spawned an industry that has erupted into monstrous proportions today.
Take, for example, James Lee Burke's Dave Robicheaux novels. I read a clutchful of these when I was early in the throes of my vigorous love affair with New Orleans. In the Electric Mist with Confederate Dead was easily my favorite because in it the stoical and sober-alcoholic veteran Robicheaux gets dosed with acid by Hollywood types and for the rest of the book has periodic, wonderful conversations with the ghost of a Confederate general who may or may not be a projection of his own best self. The Louisiana of the Robicheaux books is as dark and morally polluted as anything Marlowe or the Continental Op or even the easily detestable Mike Hammer ever faced, all tough men surviving in ethically slimy times.
French director Bertrand Tavernier has teleported the story into post-Katrina days and cast Tommy Lee Jones in the lead (I always saw Fred Ward, but the craggy face is the important thing, and Jones is no poor man's second). In fact, it sports an enviable cast, including Peter Sarsgaard, an actor I usually love but who is missing something in this role, some intangible but necessary thing. An almost unrecognisable Levon Helm (again, a man I love) is the Confederate general and the wonderful Kelly Macdonald gamely forces herself into the cramped little thankless role of a good-hearted but nonetheless tainted-by-Hollywood actress. In the end, in spite of the talent involved, there's something crucial lacking here. The awful seaminess of this world seems contrived and untrue, as it sometimes does, truth be told, in Burke's books. The characters are too often no thicker than two dimensions and all the acting skill in the world can't fix a story that's broken at its very foundation.
the Other Boleyn Girl: >SPOILER ALERT< This is a nasty tale of a heartless girl who seduces her sister's lover (while the sister is sequestered in confinement bearing his child, and at the behest of her very ambitious and possibly sociopathic family) using a dastardly yet effective tactic of ongoing titillation and withholding until he divorces his wife (meanwhile inventing Anglicanism) to marry her. Then, when the going gets rough, she sleeps with her own brother in a desperate bid to bear the needed heir to the throne, thereby condemning him to death alongside her, and nearly destroying her sister's life out of sheer petty selfishness.
An American film was also made from the same wildly popular piece of chick-lit which spawned this one, and I watched this British take first because the actors are top-notch: Jodhi May gives a manically spirited and eerily convincing performance as Anne Boleyn, and I always love Nastascha McElhone, even here in her non-role as watcher and Silent Wronged Woman. There's a lot of handheld camera and reality-TV private interviews in which the characters explain their motivations and feelings directly to us, and I suppose that's designed to make us feel right at home with these old Tudors, but instead it feels cheap. At the end we see the Tower today, tourists visiting the spot where Anne got her head chopped off, and that feels even cheaper.
My Dinner With Jimi: (2003. dir: Bill Fishman) Think of it as a morality tale for the fame-hungry: these are Howard Kaylen's remembrances of the most exciting days of his life, when the Turtles were touring England on "Happy Together" and hanging at the Speakeasy with the hippest of the hip, and yet the conversations are all as asanine and dull as you'll find in any high school cafeteria any day of the week. Moral lesson the second: all the hippest of the hip we come across (Mama Cass, Frank Zappa, Jim Morrison, Graham Nash, Donovan, Brian Jones, the Beatles and Hendrix) are just as bored as everyone else, pursuing drugs and sex to fill the time until they can get back onstage again. Is this news to anyone? There are exactly two moments when this fatuous piece of flaccidity comes to life: the worst is when John Lennon (Brian Groh) unleashes a devastating barrage of unfunny wit against the Turtles' rhythm guitarist, inspiring him to put down his guitar and never play again for the rest of his life. The scene crackles with an electricity of mortifying cruelty and bears with it an awful pong of validity. The other is when we finally get into the booth with the spinach omelettes and the man we've been waiting for... And even then, it's not that he ever says anything profound, it just always feels like he's about to. And, frankly, Hendrix had so much damn charisma that it stretches across the years and out of the grave, and a guy playing him with enough truth (as Royale Watkins does here) is a thing you can't look away from, even when the dialogue is this grindingly tedious.
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