Results, The Last Detail

Cobie Smulders and Guy Pearce in Results

Andrew Bujalski's Results is a romantic comedy with an off kilter triangle that I seemingly enjoyed a smidge more than most folks. As in Computer Chess, Bujalski injects his brand of mumblecore with enough technique to make ninety minutes pass swimmingly. Whether summarizing six months of a character's life with a montage sequence or breaking down a promo pitch via YouTube, Bujalski documents how 21st century romance persists in the age of Instagram and Facebook. Guy Pearce, Cobie Smulders and the busy Kevin Corrigan are all charming despite their characters' flaws. Elizabeth Berridge (Mrs. Corrigan) makes a welcome, but all too rare appearance in this nice film. 

Randy Quaid and Jack Nicholson in The Last Detail

A film I didn't like as much as most people is Hal Ashby's The Last Detail . Ashby is primarily an actor's director and the efforts of Nicholson, Randy Quaid, and Carol Kane are wonderful and marvelously supported. Gilda Radner has a nice cameo as a manic cultist. Nancy Allen is a whore! However, Ashby's visual style, realistic grunge with a tinge of dope addled sweetness, has always left me unmoved. Robert Towne's adaptation provides a sturdy framework for this road movie and its talented players. I hated the music. Johnny Mandel's recycling of nautical and patriotic themes for comic, MASH style effect struck me as overkill. Ashby's tawdry portrayal of East Coast America circa 1972 saves the movie from sentimentalism, but often falls prey to the humdrum inanity of realistic decoration. Nevertheless, along with Shampoo, Being There, and the maudit 8 Million Ways to Die, this is one of Ashby's better films. (6/21/16)

The Banshees of Inisherin

Colin Farrell and Brendon Gleeson in The Banshees of Inisherin

Martin McDonagh's The Banshees of Inisherin deserves most of the acclaim that has come its way. I have certainly not seen a better acting ensemble in some time. The cast (including Colin Farrell, Brendon Gleeson, Kerry Condon, Barry Keoghan, Gary Lydon and Sheila Flitton) all expertly milk the notes McDonagh has written for this dark Irish ballad.

What struck me was how seamless McDonagh has become as a filmmaker. The nearly two hour length of the movie flies by even though the drama is slow and deliberate. Part of this is due to the crisp editing. McDonagh does not linger after his characters say their lines, but quickly cuts to the response. This not only saves the film from falling into a torpor, but it stresses the estrangement of the characters in the film. Each character in The Banshees of Inisherin is an island, standing alone. 

My only criticism of the film is that it is overly schematic. Colin Farrell's Padraig is a Christian everyman. A bit doltish, but a good soul whose true communion is with the animals he tends. He is a good shepherd. Brendon Gleeson's Colm is the solitary artist who is more in touch with Ireland's pagan roots than its Christian fellowship. Notice the foreign masks, totems, and puppets that fill his cottage. McDonagh gives us a man who lives for the day versus a man who lives for eternity. What seems arbitrary is not the eventual estrangement of these characters, but the bond of friendship that formerly united them. This, however, is a quibble. Mr. McDonagh is one of the world's most talented playwrights and The Banshees of Inisherin once again confirms that his film work is of equally high caliber. 

All Quiet on the Western Front

Felix Kammerer

Edward Berger's All Quiet on the Western Front, currently streaming on Netflix, is an adequate adaptation of Erich Maria Remarque's novel about World War 1 that I can muster little enthusiasm for. The film's historical verisimilitude and production design are exemplary, but the humanistic tenor of the novel has been lost in this adaption by Mr. Berger and his collaborators. What we are left with is a World War 1 theme park ride somewhat akin to 1917. 

The main flaw is that Mr. Berger has divided his film into two halves that do not complement each other. Remarque's novel and the Lewis Milestone's stodgy film version center on the wartime horrors experienced by raw recruit Paul Baumer. In addition to this, Berger highlights the story of the German diplomatic team negotiating the Armistice. Berger no doubt thought that by showing rich diplomats and officers enjoying fine dining and drinks while Baumer (Felix Kammerer) and his pal are dying in the trenches, he would augment their plight. Instead, it vitiates the cumulative impact of the story. Remarque's work gains in strength as we get to know Paul and his cohorts. Because the story of these soldiers only takes up ninety minutes of the two and a half hour runtime, the characters in the trenches are given short shrift and the impact of their deaths are diminished. The camaraderie of the foot soldiers is one of the great consoling joys of the novel and it is largely absent from Berger's version.

Berger wants to show how the putative terms dictated to Germany at the end of World War 1 fanned the flames of nationalism in the more sinister form of Nazism. He does show, a little, the nationalistic fervor that greeted Germany's entrance into the Great War. However, the Paris Peace Conference was more responsible for the doom of the Weimar Republic than the Armistice agreed to by an exhausted Germany.

The project might have been more suited to the mini-series format. For those who have not read the novel, Berger's version might be sufficiently effective and it is certainly more loose limbed than the 1930 film. The best Remarque adaptations are relatively neglected and remain Frank Borzage's Three Comrades from 1938 and Douglas Sirk's A Time to Love and A Time to Die from 1958.