MY MOVIE SHELF: The Shining

The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015.  Remaining movies: 98 Days to go: 66

Movie #342:  The Shining

For anyone who, when I was growing up, didn’t claim The Exorcist as the scariest movie they ever saw, The Shining took the spot. I didn’t, of course. I saw it for the first time when I was in college maybe, and then again probably more than a decade ago. Once again, I felt the intense amount of hype and praise laid on the movie over the years dampened my ability to really appreciate its scare factor. Although I definitely thought it was more frightening than The Exorcist (which just made me laugh), The Shining mostly just weirded me out. (The scariest movie I saw growing up was The Howling, and I stand by that pick. These psychological horrors have nothing on that in my book.)

The Shining is about a guy named Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) who is going to be the caretaker of the remote, secluded Overlook Hotel while it’s shut down for the winter. He’s bringing his wife Wendy (Shelley Duvall) and son Danny (Danny Lloyd) along with him. The Overlook has a nefarious history, however, and is haunted by all manner of things. And over the course of about a month and a half, Jack goes completely batshit insane and tries to kill his family (not that he was all that much of a peach beforehand). Wendy and Danny (also not tipping the scales heavily in the “sane” department) have to try to escape to save themselves. Too bad they’re stranded on a mountain in the middle of nowhere, snowed in until doomsday.

While I’m not particularly scared by The Shining (and don’t know that I ever would’ve been, honestly, even if I’d seen it before hearing too much about it), it does get pretty creepy at times. Danny’s imaginary friend Tony is not the kind of playmate I’d want my kid to have, for one thing. I guess Wendy and Jack didn’t really know about Tony’s eerie way of knowing things before they happened or ominous predictions, but I still think I would’ve enlisted the help of a doctor long before Wendy does. And I definitely would’ve freaked out the second he started going on about Danny not being there anymore. Of course, by that time they were stranded so there wasn’t much for her to do anyway then.

There’s also a lot of stuff going on with twins and tidal waves of blood and crazy dead ladies and hallucinations of all sorts, but honestly the scariest thing The Shining has going for it is Jack’s fully typed manuscript of nothing but the words “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy” over and over and over and over again. It’s insane. It’s terrifying. It’s the creepiest thing to happen in the movie by far, not only as a concept, but also because someone actually typed that out. It’s not just a few sheets photocopied to look like several. It’s different paragraph placement, different word positioning. You can see various typos in various places all over each sheet. It’s really, actually, manually typed, over and over, on all these different sheets of paper. The mere thought of doing that for a prop is enough to drive a person insane, I’d imagine. But the thought of walking up to your husband’s 500+ page manuscript and finding that? Oh. My. God. That’s terrifying. And that’s why it’s the moment Wendy loses her shit. It’s why that’s the moment the musical score crescendos and crashes and shakes you to your core. Because that’s the moment you realize how truly, undeniably, irrevocably psychotic this dude has become. It’s fucking brilliant.

Nicholson’s iconic “Here’s Johnny” moment with the ax gets a lot of play, and I get it. It’s a memorable moment of typical horror film fare. Duvall, with her preternaturally wide eyes to begin with, is a quivering, trembling mass of fear. It’s almost tangible, and it’s a really effective scene. But nothing will ever be scarier than that manuscript. Maybe that’s why the movie falls short for me, actually. Nothing else in it lives up to the terror that moment brings.

 

MY MOVIE SHELF: One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015.  Remaining movies: 175  Days to go: 178

Movie #202:  One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

When AFI released its 50 Greatest Villains, Nurse Ratched (Louise Fletcher) was right there at #5. Now, make no mistake, Nurse Ratched is a cold, exacting bitch who manipulates and stealthily, maliciously torments her patients, all while wielding a soothing voice to hide her disdainful stare, but I think it’s about time there was some real talk about One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. That being, specifically, R. P. McMurphy (Jack Nicholson) is a real asshole. And an irresponsible asshole at that. That’s not to say that McMurphy deserves everything he gets — I would never say that — but let’s not delude ourselves that Ratched isn’t at least a little bit justified in her hatred of him.

I first became fascinated with One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest because it was on one of those lists of Things From the Year of Your Birth that you get at novelty stores or whatever. It was awarded the Best Picture Oscar that year, and I’ve always felt a little bit connected to it as a result — long before I ever watched the thing. Then when AFI’s Top 100 Films of All Time came out and I set about trying to see as many as I could of the ones I hadn’t yet, there it was again. I watched it, and I loved it. It really is a phenomenal picture. The Academy wasn’t wrong. (It also won Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Director, all deserved.)

R.P. McMurphy is a petty criminal who gets in a lot of fights and never plays by the rules and stirs up trouble as a general rule. He’s not a bad guy, exactly, but he’s not a hero either. He’s a jerk. He’s obnoxious and selfish and rude and he has absolutely no respect for authority. So as a way to game the system, he’s decided to act crazy in jail in order to get transferred to the state mental hospital. He thinks it’ll be a cakewalk. He’ll have a little fun, get out from under the thumb of the prison guards, and go back to his life when his sentence is over. Joke’s on him, though, because the hospital ward is Nurse Ratched’s domain, and she and the doctors there can extend his stay as long as they see fit. He’s been committed, you see, and while she knows (as the doctors do) that he’s not crazy, he’s made a point to be a pain in her ass, so she votes to keep him under their care for the time being rather than send him back to jail.

McMurphy is pissed at this, naturally — not that he knows she voted to keep him there but when he finds out his sentence won’t run out in 68 days like he thought — but he still makes no effort whatsoever to toe the line. He’s spent all his time on the ward riling up the patients — most of whom are there voluntarily because they have extreme depression, anger or other social anxieties — gambling away the few privileges they have, and constantly trying to escape. Then he throws a huge party in ward one night, sneaking in booze and chicks before he runs away for good, but manages to pass out drunk before he runs away, and he’s caught again. It probably wouldn’t be the end of him if he didn’t then try to strangle Nurse Ratched for her cruel and unrelenting treatment of a fellow patient following the night’s debauchery. Attempted murder is not going to win you any favors, it turns out.

So if McMurphy isn’t the hero of the story then, who is? If Nurse Ratched is the villain, then someone must be the hero, right? The hero, it turns out, is Chief (Will Sampson). He’s a large, looming Native American who appears to one and all as deaf and dumb. McMurphy treats him as a pal, though, despite the claims that Chief has no idea what McMurphy’s even saying. It doesn’t matter. Mac plays basketball with him and jokes around with him and makes him feel like part of the group, and eventually Chief reveals he can hear and talk just fine. The two become good friends, and Mac tries to convince Chief to run away with him, but Chief is there (and faking a serious disability) because he can’t face the world, can’t talk to people, can’t leave the security of the ward. He’s afraid of it all and plays the role of the deaf-mute because it prevents him, then, from having to try to engage and to talk and to interact with others. Chief’s triumph at the end, therefore, is truly inspiring and heartwarming. He’s lost his friend (well before Mac returns to the ward, it turns out, making what happens next more an act of mercy than anything else), but he still finds the strength to go, to leave the confines of the ward, with all its safe and familiar routines, and to head out into the great expanse of the distant mountains. It’s a lovely ending.

The ward is filled with notable performances from a lot of recognizable and renowned actors, as well. There’s a really young Danny DeVito as Martini, a lanky and bald Christopher Lloyd as Taber, Sidney Lassick as Cheswick, Vincent Schiavelli as Fredrickson, and prolific character actor Brad Dourif in his first credited role as the tragic and adored Billy Bibbit. While most of these patients still won’t leave the ward after McMurphy’s time there (and poor Billy’s is cut short by circumstances brought on by both McMurphy and Ratched, despite McMurphy’s view of things), he did bring confidence and verve back into their lives. He made them a little more open, a little more sure of themselves, a little more alive — at least for a time. So maybe McMurphy is a hero in his own right. A tragic hero, perhaps. One who never really lived up to his potential, was fouled by his own colossal screw-ups, and one who ultimately lost everything, but one who made a little bit of a difference — who made things just a little bit better for a while.

It’s a thought, anyway.

 

MY MOVIE SHELF: A Few Good Men

The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015.  Remaining movies: 268  Days to go: 262

Movie #109: A Few Good Men

Nobody remembers the beginnings of movies, do they? I mean, you remember the big moments, the climaxes, the great lines. And if you catch it on TV, you almost always miss the very beginning. At least I do. So I put on A Few Good Men excited to see the gorgeous opening of naval officers doing their patterned, ritual marching and gun exercises on the lawn. Only that’s not how the movie starts. It starts with the night-time attack on William Santiago (Michael DeLorenzo) at the Guantanamo Bay marine base. Director Rob Reiner did that on purpose. He’s letting the audience know that with all the pageantry and code of the military to come, this movie is about the death of a young man. Writer Aaron Sorkin knows the importance of that as well, which is why he gives us the character of Sam Weinberg (Kevin Pollak). He may joke that he has “no responsibilities here whatsoever,” but it’s not true. As he says, “I believe every word of their story, and I think they ought to go to jail for the rest of their lives.” His responsibility is to be the conscience, to say that even if Dawson (Wolfgang Bodison) and Downey (James Marshall) were ordered to attack Santiago, they should’ve known it was wrong. They should’ve protected him instead, whatever the cost.

Let me back up.

A Few Good Men is about the trial of Marines Harold Dawson and Louden Downey for the murder of their fellow soldier William Santiago. It’s about a gifted yet lackadaisical Naval attorney named Daniel Kaffee (Tom Cruise) with a history of fast-talking insouciance and plea bargaining, sent to cover a murder case the military would most definitely like to go away. It’s about a passionate and intelligent attorney from the JAG Corps named JoAnne Galloway (Demi Moore) who is the backbone of the defense’s case and their most vocal supporter, despite being inexperienced as a litigator. It’s about the culture of a Marine base that encourages the discipline of soldiers by other enlisted men, of hazing and torture as means of “training” their troops. It’s about the blurred lines between truth and the law and the gray area that exists between right and wrong.

Aaron Sorkin definitely has a reputation for letting his biases take over his storytelling, but I think A Few Good Men succeeds as his most measured and even-handed piece. Yes, Colonel Jessup (Jack Nicholson) and Lt. Kendrick (Kiefer Sutherland) are portrayed as fanatical and arrogant and wrongheaded, but most of the military members are not — not even most of the Marines. It’s the (admittedly) rare moment when Sorkin has something thoughtful to say about an institution that is absolutely honorable and should absolutely be respected, but which at times conducts itself in ways that aren’t honorable at all and should not be tolerated or respected at all (not just hazing either — he also manages to slip in the lazy, categorically ignored instances of sexual harassment toward JoAnne, though the movie doesn’t deal with that issue). And, beautifully, the court members — the jury, in this case — are able to parse the difference. Just like Sam Weinberg, they know Dawson and Downey are not guilty of murder or conspiracy to commit murder. But they are guilty of conduct unbecoming a United States Marine and that they should be punished accordingly. (Not with prison for the rest of their lives, but accordingly.)

My husband and his brother were having a conversation recently about the numerous claims of late all over the news of police overstepping their bounds with regard to force and detaining citizens and whatnot. While I think my brother-in-law had a point about not courting trouble and the law enforcement professionals being due a lot of respect for their sacrifices, the idea that someone can be handcuffed and detained simply for not “respecting” the police to an adequate degree doesn’t sit well with me. Yes, police officers — and members of the military, for that matter — put their lives on the line every single day for the good of the country and its people. But that’s just it: They’re there for the good of the people. Their mission is to protect and to serve. A police officer is literally a public servant (as is any government official), so while I feel they deserve respect, I also believe they need to earn it by respecting the people in their towns and communities — by being patient with and understanding of those in their jurisdictions, those they’re meant to protect. Not to bully them or boss them around or otherwise abuse their power in any way. A Few Good Men understands that. In fact, it’s its primary lesson. In the words of Dawson (the true heart of the film), “We were supposed to fight for people who couldn’t fight for themselves. We were supposed to fight for Willy.”

In the middle of everything else: Kaffee thinking better with his bat, Markinson (J.T. Walsh) killing himself in full dress uniform, Jessup wanting to be asked nicely, Sam telling Danny to wear his (“effety” — Trademark, Veronica Mars) white uniform, Jo getting authorization from Aunt Jenny, Jack Ross (Kevin Bacon) being “a lousy fucking softball player,” all the gorgeous marching drills, Sorkin favorite Josh Malina doing stellar work as the guy who’s going to call the President for Jessup so he can surrender their position in Cuba, and reciting every single one of a billion great lines, the thing to remember is that soldiers are there to fight for the powerless. Above all else, that’s what matters. Anything less is conduct unbecoming.

MY MOVIE SHELF: The Departed

The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015.  Remaining movies: 294  Days to go: 281

Movie #83: The Departed

Of all the 21st-century-era Scorsese movies people were clamoring to give him the Best Director Oscar for (Gangs of New York, The Aviator and The Departed) after not having won any of the previous  times he was nominated (for Raging Bull, The Last Temptation of Christ and Goodfellas), I’m really glad the one that finally did it for him was The Departed, because it was the most deserving of the three. Gangs of New York is uneven, and the only truly great performance is Bill the Butcher (Daniel Day-Lewis). The Aviator is a show-stopper, no doubt, and I thought much more of a grand entertaining picture than eventual Best Picture/Director winner Million Dollar Baby, but, while it won a handful of statuettes, parts again felt uneven, and though I disagreed, I understood the Academy’s preference for the Eastwood flick. The Departed, however, is fantastic. With that, I will brook no argument.

Dealing with the corrupt world of south Boston organized crime and the police force tasked with taking down crime boss Frank Costello (Jack Nicholson), The Departed is a twisted, layered film of intrigue and betrayal. Costello has rats inside the police force. The state troopers have undercover guys inside Costello’s crew. Good guys are bad guys and bad guys are good guys. Nobody can be trusted.

Colin Sullivan (Matt Damon) is an up-and-coming state police detective with a lot of ambition and a lot of upward mobility. He’s also informing to Costello about police movements in the Special Investigation Unit. William Costigan (Leonardo DiCaprio) is a Southie kid with a bad reputation who makes good by becoming a trooper, but is placed in deep undercover with Costello by the State Undercover Unit, run by Queenan (Martin Sheen) and Dignam (Mark Wahlberg). Both men are consumed and torn apart by their double lives, always afraid someone knows who they are, always looking over their shoulders as both Costello and the SIU come to realize their have a traitor in their midst. What follows is a tense and terrifying game of cat and mouse, with no way of knowing who, if anyone, is going to get out alive.

I admit to having a soft spot for these thick Boston accents, and the constant profanity-laden insults warm the New York cockles of my heart, but I honestly love the performances in this one. Everyone is hard, everyone is angry, everyone is throwing their dicks around trying to prove whose is biggest, and it’s great. Male competitive machismo is something Martin Scorsese is great at, and that’s quite a niche. However, out of all the excellent work here I think DiCaprio really does some of the best of his career. For the first time in a long time, he manages to shed every ounce of his own persona to take on the two competing ones of Billy Costigan. He’s tortured and scared and tough and vulnerable and badass and smart and sexy as hell. (Like most Scorsese movies, there’s not much room for women to do anything, but Vera Farmiga does amazing work as police psychologist Madolyn, who is torn between Sullivan and Costigan herself, for different reasons — girl has got a type.)

Sadly, this is one of the roles DiCaprio didn’t get nominated for — not that he would’ve won; the Academy has some sort of grudge against Leo — but it won Best Picture and Best Director (as well as Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Film Editing), so I can’t really complain I guess.

Scratch that. I want somebody to come at me asking who I am to question the Academy’s decisions just so I can counter with “Who am I? I’m the guy who does his job. You must be the other guy.”