In Time

Andrew Niccol's In Time, from 2011, posits a world where everyone stays 25, but time has become currency. This not only produces a dystopian future where the elites can live for a century and the rabble struggle to eke out an existence, but also to the usual Hollywood hallucination in which Olivia Wilde can portray Justin Timberlake's mother. The film's critique of capitalism is pointed and timely, but In Time's impact is blunted by Timberlake and Amanda Seyfried's lack of chemistry. 

Seyfried and Timberlake are both adequate, but fail to ignite a spark in their romantic scenes. This lessens the impact of the conclusion of the film when they have morphed into Bonnie and Clyde types who rob the time banks of the rich. Timberlake is too graceful and effete to portray a tough guy from the wrong side of the tracks. He only comes to life when he dons a suit and dances with the fetching Seyfried. Seyfried is too warm to play the brittle rich girl. The baddies fare better with Cillian Murphy as a cop tasked with giving the backstory and Alex Pettyfer oozing charisma as a gangster. Vincent Kartheiser, forever typecast as a creep thanks to his role in Mad Men, fits the bill as one of the capitalist swine variety.

Like Niccol's Gattaca, the film excels at an architectural vision of a dystopia, but, unlike that film, fails to capture many memorable moments of human interaction. Even if one doesn't dwell on the many lunacies of In Time's script, there are no moments as memorable as Ernest Borgnine toadying up to his masters in Gattaca. It remains to be seen if Niccol is more than a one trick pony. 

Veronica Mars

Kristen Bell as Veronica Mars

Rob Thomas' Veronica Mars registers as more of a coda to the television series starring Kristen Bell than a stand alone product. Fans of the series will find it a playful sop, but outliers will probably be baffled. Thomas doesn't really seem to have the directing chops to expand the mise en scene of the series, but his trenchant view of the SoCal lifestyle and the charm of the players remains intact. 

I remember how in the 1960s various successful TV series spun off into movies that offered minimal viewing rewards: McHale's Navy, Batman: The Movie, Munster, Go Home!; all truly feeble films. There are only a handful of films spun off from television shows that stand alone as worthy films: Don Siegel's The Lineup, Blake Edwards' Gunn, and Joss Whedon's Serenity are the only ones I can think of off the top of my head. Like the Sex and the City films and Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life, Veronica Mars seems to exist as more of a chance for fans to enjoy beloved characters again rather than to reinterpret them cinematically.

I do want to go on record as being very much a Veronica Mars fan, Indeed, I would rate the series higher than such touted ones as The Sopranos and Mad Men. Despite its high school detective premise, Veronica Mars offers a more incisive and less cartoonish point of view than either of those series. It was ahead of its time in addressing issues that have not evaporated: racial strife, economic equality, police corruption, misogyny, to name just a few.

Part of the reason I have striven to restrict my writing to film is that if I attempted to address television shows I would feel obligated to write lengthy treatises on shows I've enjoyed such as Mr. Robot and Legion, but I don't have the time or the bandwidth. Similarly, there is enough to chew on concerning Veronica Mars to inspire innumerable doctoral theses from now till doomsday.

One spring I will pull is the show's take on Hollywood. The setting of the show is the fictional town of Neptune, supposedly a northern suburb of San Diego. There, the elite high schoolers are referred to as 09ers, a riff, I suppose, on Beverly Hills 90210. The premier bad boy of the elite set, Logan Echolls, is the son of a major movie star, Arron Echolls. He is played by Harry Hamlin and Aaron Echolls wife is played by Hamlin's wife, the bizarre visual effect known as Lisa Rinna.

This provides ample opportunity to lampoon Hollywood materialism and narcissism and the show delivers. Hamlin and his wife portray exaggerated facsimiles of themselves. Hamlin even watches his younger self perform in Clash of the Titans at one point. Since Hamlin and Rinna are themselves rather overblown and monstrous Hollywood creatures, their presence amounts to a self-parody and auto-critique. I would call their performances tongue in cheek, if either were skillful enough thespians to project that they were in on the joke. (Actually, Hamlin is always reliable, if a little wooden. Rinna is dire) Nevertheless, Thomas is concocting these broad characterizations in a rather fanciful series and the effect works dramatically. The cartoonish stereotypes of Italian gangsters in The Sopranos detract from what is ostensibly a work of realism.

Jason Dohring as Logan Echolls

Thomas does have a point to his satire of SoCal elites because he shows the damage wrought on their children by their hollow and capricious lifestyles. Logan Echolls is alternately ignored and spoiled by his father, who not only beats Logan, drives his mother to suicide due to his philandering and mistreatment, but also beds and then murders Logan's girlfriend. Whew! Logan tries to suppress his rage, but it intermittently explodes into violence. Thomas is greatly helped in making this melodramatic stew palatable by having the deftest actor of his ensemble, Jason Dohring, play Logan. Dohring consistently underplays his role, softly speaking his lines whether he is coming onto a coed or threatening a rival. This makes Logan Echolls paroxysms of fury all the more disturbing and disjunctive when they are unleashed,

Veronica Mars, the series, is rewarding viewing that has many layers of signifiers and themes to explore. Besides its updating of noir (much like Rian Johnson's Brick), its portrayal of tabloid culture and a host of other hot button topics previously mentioned, it unspools a plethora of cultural references in a self-knowing, post-modern style. Not to the level of Gilmore Girls, but it is hip enough to tip its cap to the feminist heroines of Stars Hollow. Veronica Mars, the movie, is not the best entry into this saga, but it is a nice capstone to a worthy series. (8/22/17)

The Naked Dawn

Edgar G. Ulmer's The Naked Dawn is a pretty good B picture from 1955. Ulmer establishes his love triangle well and provides enough Mexican exotica to show off the Technicolor without edging into ridiculousness. While it is easy to oversell a film like this to the casual viewer, an aficionado can only marvel at what Ulmer could accomplish on a ten day shooting schedule.

The Naked Dawn's premise is fairly simple: an outlaw on the lam happens upon a simple farmer and his wife and soon ensnares them in his misdeeds. The wife, forced into an arranged marriage, is, before you can even say Black Jack Davy, quite eager to ride off with the outlaw. Arthur Kennedy seems an odd choice to play a Mexican outlaw, but, even with a dyed beard and hair, he is effective. Perhaps feeling liberated after playing second bananas and constipated villains, he gives a performance of great charm and gusto without a hint of the Frito Bandito. I've always felt that Kennedy was an underrated performer and can only marvel at his steady contributions to such fine films as The Lusty Men, The Man from Laramie, Rancho Notorious, Bend of the River, Cheyenne Autumn, etc. 

Betta St. John, who I vaguely remember from the turgid The Robe, is pretty good as the wife. Eugene Iglesias less so as the farmer. Ulmer uses a wonderful tracking shot in the first walk and talk between Kennedy and St. John and photographs her bare arms and shoulders to scintillating effect during their last tryst. A dance sequence in a cantina with the enticing Charlita perks up the film's midsection. No masterpiece, The Naked Dawn is a solid film from a director who achieved cult acclaim while working at the bottom of Hollywood's food chain. It would make a good double bill with Buñuel's Robinson Crusoe, another technicolor B shot in Mexico during the 1950s that was also scripted by a blacklisted writer.