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'Pledge' is Nicholson on slow boil
[Warner Bros.]
Vanessa Redgrave, left, and Jack Nicholson star in The Pledge, one of Nicholson’s most self-assured cinematic performances. |
By STEVE PERSALL
© St. Petersburg Times,
published June 21, 2001
NEW RELEASES
The Pledge
(R) Weary detective Jerry Black (Jack Nicholson) is almost retired when another murder case crosses his path. This time, it's a child victim, and Jerry pledges to her parents he'll find the killer. Part of his odd investigation involves a single mother (Robin Wright Penn) and her daughter, in ways that director Sean Penn achieves with chilling efficiency. Nicholson's subdued portrayal is one of the best performances of 2001, so far.
First impressions: "Stripped of his easiest acting tools, Nicholson proves again to the audience and maybe, just maybe, himself that he can be a devastatingly subtle portrayer of human nature. . . It's a character smoldering with obsession, keeping everything on a rolling boil inside until his pressure valve bursts. (This) won't be remembered as one of the actor's most charismatic performances, but it's one of his most quietly assured since the days of Five Easy Pieces and The King of Marvin Gardens."
Second thoughts: Too downbeat for some tastes, but this movie sticks with you like a bad dream.
Rental audience: Nicholson fans, admirers of Penn's terse filmmaking style.
Rent it if you enjoy: The Crossing Guard, The Indian Runner, The Sweet Hereafter.
Save the Last Dance
(PG-13) Julia Stiles plays Sara, an aspiring ballerina forced to give up a Juilliard education when her mother dies and she moves to Chicago. Fitting in with the urban hip-hop crowd is tough until she busts a few moves on the dance floor with handsome Derek (Sean Patrick Thomas).
First impressions: "Bland but poised, the romantic melodrama Save the Last Dance seems tailor-made for 'tweens. It's a decaf iced frappuccino, a confection that won't upset the stomachs of its target audience: the young crowd perched on the edge of pubescence and not quite prepared for the autumnal sophistication of, say, a Freddie Prinze Jr. movie. . .
"The film has a lot of surface complication but no attention span; it's a centimeter deep. . . (The film) also brushes past the issue of resentment raised by white girls' dating young African-American men who stand a chance of leaving the ghetto behind. In Derek, there's also the bright young black man who still has to prove he's down by hanging with would-be gangstas. The waste of opportunity is maddening." (Elvis Mitchell, New York Times)
Second thoughts: The kind of movie for which MTV created its own awards show.
Rental audience: Anyone who can identify the hosts of TRL and Jackass.
Rent it if you enjoy: A little movie with your pop music videos.
REWIND: Videos worth another look
The camera turns its eye on Hollywood
Hollywood is always ready for its close-up, blemishes and all. Filmmakers love spoofing and celebrating the film industry, grinding axes and tossing bouquets with equal enthusiasm.
This week's home video release of State and Main exemplifies how it's done correctly. Others, like An Alan Smithee Film: Burn, Hollywood, Burn and John Waters' Cecil B. Demented can make a viewer wish celluloid had never been invented.
Go behind the camera for the best views of Hollywood's back-stabbing, ego-inflating ways of doing business with these home video suggestions:
The Player -- No film ever jabbed the industry harder than Robert Altman's satire. Tim Robbins plays a producer in desperate need of a hit, even if it means murdering a screenwriter. Keep an eye peeled for dozens of celebrity cameos, from Jack Lemmon playing piano to Bruce Willis and Julia Roberts co-starring in a bogus blockbuster.
The Bad and the Beautiful -- Kirk Douglas plays a sublime heel, producer Jonathan Shields, who uses people as stepping stones to success. Hard-bitten melodrama that inspired Vincente Minnelli to make a companion piece 10 years later, Two Weeks in Another Town.
The Big Picture -- Christopher Guest (Best of Show, Waiting for Guffman) wrote and directed this tale of a student filmmaker (Kevin Bacon) selling out to get his movie produced. Includes a rare occasion when Martin Short was genuinely funny on screen.
Get Shorty -- Hollywood proves too tough for even organized crime to handle in Barry Levinson's comedy. John Travolta plays Chili Palmer, an enforcer using strong-arm tactics to become a movie producer.
Gods and Monsters -- Celebrity biographies are common. The emotional depth of this one isn't. Ian McKellen plays director James Whale (Frankenstein), whose homosexuality led to the end of his career. This and Sunset Boulevard show how far the might can fall in show biz.
The Front -- A rare dramatic performance by Woody Allen, playing a cashier whose name was used as a nom de plume for blacklisted screenwriters during McCarthyism. Zero Mostel co-stars. Also recommended on the topic: Guilty by Suspicion with Robert De Niro.
Hollywood Shuffle -- The image and impact of African-Americans in Hollywood get skewered by Robert Townsend. He plays a talented black actor who can't land any roles without negative stereotypes. The laughs stick in your throat. But, sad to say, some gags still aren't outdated.
The Stunt Man -- One of the great lost films of the 1980s. A megalomaniacal director (Peter O'Toole) hires an escaped murderer (Steve Railsback) as a stunt performer. But, is he trying to help the guy, or kill him? A movie for people who love movies.
The Last Tycoon -- Robert De Niro plays a producer loosely based on Irving Thalberg, coping with the end of the studio system and rising union pressures. What a pedigree: Directed by Elia Kazan, written by Harold Pinter and with a cast including Robert Mitchum, Jack Nicholson, Tony Curtis and Anjelica Huston.
Swimming with Sharks -- A cruel and unusual producer (Kevin Spacey) has the tables turned on him by a meek assistant (Frank Whaley) who has had enough. Nasty, mean-spirited and fun.
S.O.B. -- Blake Edwards thumbed his nose at the system with this story of a fading director (Richard Mulligan) planning to turn his latest family-fare flop into an R-rated movie. Part of the plan involves his ex-wife (Julie Andrews) going topless. Et tu, Mary Poppins?
DVD: New and noteworthy for digital players
David Mamet satire comes to DVD
State and Main
[Fine Line Features]
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In a scene from State and Main, Rebecca Pidgeon and Philip Seymour Hoffman go over a script together.
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Nobody else writes bluntly revealing dialogue like David Mamet. That makes his absence from the audio commentary track for State and Main sorely disappointing. This Hollywood satire is warmer, lighter than, say, Glengarry Glen Ross. Yet, it retains his knack for characters blasting profane squibs of personality that add up to confessions.
This time, it's a movie crew loaded with insecurities posing as true artists and commandeering a New England town for a location shoot. No archetype of Hollywood ego and influence is ignored, from deluded actors (Alec Baldwin, Sarah Jessica Parker) to a sell-out screenwriter (Phillip Seymour Hoffman). The townsfolk aren't always what they seem, and everybody is looking for some kind of score, as Mamet's best creations do.
It would be wonderful hearing Mamet explain just how he does it.
Instead, we get five actors discussing the filmmaker's gift, and only one has anything salient to say. Thank goodness for William H. Macy, a frequent Mamet collaborator, for the occasional shining nugget of information, delivered in a deadpan voice that makes everything he says worth considering twice.
At one point, Macy recalls doing a Mamet play at Lincoln Center when the author faxed a joke about a panda to the director, insisting upon its insertion anywhere in the second act. Macy swears that stupid joke earned a 90-second laugh break before the play could continue. It's a superb example of writer's instinct, adding new tones like a musician: "Dave hears the music in the writing," Macy observes.
The rest of the commentary -- the DVD's only notable extra -- is the sort of veiled immodesty and mutual admiration heard each day on the E! channel.
Then, there's Macy, ribbing "big fat movie stars" like Baldwin, griping about actors tinkering with scripts and noting Mamet's unwritten rule that "All the filming he does must be within a certain radius of his kitchen table." He speaks with a knowing reluctance, sounding like something Mamet would compose.
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