Jerry, have you ever taken a bath in the dark?

Seinfeld

2.1: The Ex-Girlfriend

The Premise

George summons up the courage to break it off with a girlfriend. Jerry debates whether to go out with her.

Observational

If the plots haven’t yet become finely crafted jewellery, you can already see how Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David have honed their approach in the wake of the brief first season. The central premise is a solid one, but the concurrent storylines take place off-screen.

George’s worry and prevaricating is typical George, while Jerry’s blasé approach to matters of the heart (“Just do it like a band aid. One motion. Right off”) is of a piece. George’s nonchalance at Jerry wanting to go out with his ex, even given that he is surprised by his lack of concern (“You’re a fine person. You’re a humanitarian”), is probably not something the writers would have gone for in later seasons (the consequent neuroses would have proven irresistible).

And Tracy Kolis’ broad southern gal Marlene is very funny, duskily sexy and unsettling at the same time. The answer phone message she leaves Jerry is hilariously batty (“Jerry, have you ever taken a bath in the dark? I’m not talking into the soap right now. Call me back”) and her vacant delivery shows fine comic timing. If there’s a criticism it’s that the pay-off seems rather an obvious one with the benefit of hindsight; she doesn’t like his comedy act and won’t go out with someone she doesn’t respect.

If George’s casualness over his ex is a surprise, he makes up for it elsewhere, It’s his sense of his own weakness that pushes Jerry towards Marlene in the first place (George persuades him to pick up some books he left at her apartment, too cowardly to do it himself). His conviction that chiropracty is a racket provides a great running gag (“They don’t do anything!”) and then there’s his reaction to the bill (“What, am I seeing Sinatra in there?”) George’s penny-pinching will also become a series constant; he only pays half the bill for his treatment, and Jerry picks up the rest of the tab. Likewise, he will regularly be confronted with lurking doubts over the mettle his heterosexuality. He also swallows a fly (“What should I do? What can happen?”)

Elaine has an issue with a neighbour who used to say hello everyday but now ignores her (“He went from nods to nothing”), and is persuaded to confront him. The scene where she recounts what happened is a great example of the energy Julia Louis-Dreyfus brings to the show, but she and Michael Richards are definitely pulling the rear-guard action in this one. Kramer’s particularity over fruit gets an early innings as he tries to persuade Jerry of the wonders of his cantaloupe vendor. Of course, Jerry buys from his own seller (“See, that stinks!” exclaims Kramer).

Nothing much to write home about on the monologues front; discussions of road lane experts and women needing to like the job of guys they’re dating.

Quotable

Elaine: I think you’re a little afraid to sit next to a man. You’re a little homophobic, aren’t you?

George: Is it that obvious?

George: I think you absolutely have to say something to this guy. Confront him.

Elaine: Really?

George: Yes.

Elaine: Would you do that?

George: If I was a different person.

Jerry: I don’t return fruit. Fruit’s a gamble. I know that going in.

George: I left some books at her apartment.

Jerry: Did you read them?

George: Yeah.

Jerry: So what do you need them for?

George: They’re books!

George: You paid that crook? He didn’t do anything, Jerry! It’s a scam!

Marlene: I can’t be someone if I don’t respect what they do.

Jerry: You’re a cashier!

Verdict:

Your Mickey Mouse is one big stupid dope!

Enemy Mine (1985) (SPOILERS) The essential dynamic of Enemy Mine – sworn enemies overcome their differences to become firm friends – was a well-ploughed one when it was made, such that it led to TV Tropes assuming, since edited, that it took its title from an existing phrase (Barry Longyear, author of the 1979 novella, made it up, inspired by the 1961 David Niven film The Best of Enemies ). The Film Yearbook Volume 5 opined that that Wolfgang Petersen’s picture “ lacks the gritty sauciness of Hell in the Pacific”; John Boorman’s WWII film stranded Lee Marvin and Toshiro Mifune on a desert island and had them first duking it out before becoming reluctant bedfellows. Perhaps germanely, both movies were box office flops.

If I do nothing else, I will convince them that Herbert Stempel knows what won the goddam Academy Award for Best goddam Picture of 1955. That’s what I’m going to accomplish.

Quiz Show (1994) (SPOILERS) Quiz Show perfectly encapsulates a certain brand of Best Picture nominee: the staid, respectable, diligent historical episode, a morality tale in response to which the Academy can nod their heads approvingly and discerningly, feeding as it does their own vainglorious self-image about how times and attitudes have changed, in part thanks to their own virtuousness. Robert Redford’s film about the 1950s Twenty-One quiz show scandals is immaculately made, boasts a notable cast and is guided by a strong screenplay from Paul Attanasio (who, on television, had just created the seminal Homicide: Life on the Streets ), but it lacks that something extra that pushes it into truly memorable territory.

Other monks will meet their deaths here. And they too will have blackened fingers. And blackened tongues.

The Name of the Rose (1986) (SPOILERS) Umberto Eco wasn’t awfully impressed by Jean Jacques-Annaud’s adaptation of his novel – or “ palimpsest of Umberto Eco’s novel ” as the opening titles announce – to the extent that he nixed further movie versions of his work. Later, he amended that view, calling it “ a nice movie ”. He also, for balance, labelled The Name of the Rose his worst novel – “ I hate this book and I hope you hate it too ”. Essentially, he was begrudging its renown at the expense of his later “ superior ” novels. I didn’t hate the novel, although I do prefer the movie, probably because I saw it first and it was everything I wanted from a medieval Sherlock Holmes movie set in a monastery and devoted to forbidden books, knowledge and opinions.

You ever heard the saying, “Don’t rob the bank across from the diner that has the best donuts in three counties”?

2 Guns (2013) (SPOILERS) Denzel Washington is such a reliable performer, that it can get a bit boring. You end up knowing every gesture or inflection in advance, whether he’s playing a good guy or a bad guy. And his films are generally at least half decent, so you end up seeing them. Even in Flight (or perhaps especially in Flight ; just watch him chugging down that vodka) where he’s giving it his Oscar-nominatable best, he seems too familiar. I think it may be because he’s an actor who is more effective the less he does. In 2 Guns he’s not doing less, but sometimes it seems like it. That’s because the last person I’d ever expect blows him off the screen; Mark Wahlberg.

Piece by piece, the camel enters the couscous.

The Forgiven (2021) (SPOILERS) By this point, the differences between filmmaker John Michael McDonagh and his younger brother, filmmaker and playwright Martin McDonagh, are fairly clearly established. Both wear badges of irreverence and provocation in their writing, and a willingness to tackle – or take pot-shots – at bigger issues, ones that may find them dangling their toes in hot water. But Martin receives the lion’s share of the critical attention, while John is generally recognised as the slightly lesser light. Sure, some might mistake Seven Psychopaths for a John movie, and Calvary for a Martin one, but there’s a more flagrant sense of attention seeking in John’s work, and concomitantly less substance. The Forgiven is clearly aiming more in the expressly substantial vein of John’s earlier Calvary, but it ultimately bears the same kind of issues in delivery.

Say hello to the Scream Extractor.

Monsters, Inc. (2001) (SPOILERS) I was never the greatest fan of Monsters, Inc. , even before charges began to be levelled regarding its “true” subtext. I didn’t much care for the characters, and I particularly didn’t like the way Pixar’s directors injected their own parenting/ childhood nostalgia into their plots. Something that just seems to go on with their fare ad infinitum. Which means the Pixars I preferred tended to be the Brad Bird ones. You know, the alleged objectivist. Now, though, we learn Pixar has always been about the adrenochrome, so there’s no going back…

Haven’t you ever heard of the healing power of laughter?

Batman (1989) (SPOILERS) There’s Jaws , there’s Star Wars , and then there’s Batman in terms of defining the modern blockbuster. Jaws ’ success was so profound, it changed the way movies were made and marketed. Batman’s marketing was so profound, it changed the way tentpoles would be perceived: as cash cows. Disney tried to reproduce the effect the following year with Dick Tracy , to markedly less enthusiastic response. None of this places Batman in the company of Jaws as a classic movie sold well, far from it. It just so happened to hit the spot. As Tim Burton put it, it was “ more of a cultural phenomenon than a great movie ”. It’s difficult to disagree with his verdict that the finished product (for that is what it is) is “ mainly boring ”. Now, of course, the Burton bat has been usurped by the Nolan incarnation (and soon the Snyder). They have some things in common. Both take the character seriously and favour a sombre tone, which was much more of shock to the

In a few moments, you will have an experience that will seem completely real. It will be the result of your subconscious fears transformed into your conscious awareness.

Brainstorm (1983) (SPOILERS) Might Brainstorm have been the next big thing – a ground-breaking, game-changing cinematic spectacle that had as far reaching consequences as Star Wars (special effects) or Avatar (3D) – if only Douglas Trumbull had been allowed to persevere with his patented “Showscan” process (70mm film photographed and projected at 60 frames per second)? I suspect not; one only has to look at the not-so-far-removed experiment of Ang Lee with Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk , and how that went down like a bag of cold sick, to doubt that any innovation will necessarily catch on (although Trumbull at least had a narrative hinge on which to turn his “more real than real” imagery, whereas Lee’s pretty much boiled down to “because it was there”). Brainstorm ’s story is, though, like its title, possibly too cerebral, too much concerned with the consciousness and touting too little of the cloyingly affirmative that Bruce Rubin inevitably brings to his screenplays. T

No one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself.

The Matrix (1999) (SPOILERS) Twenty years on, and the articles are on the defining nature of The Matrix are piling up, most of them touching on how its world has become a reality, or maybe always was one. At the time, its premise was engaging enough, but it was the sum total of the package that cast a spell – the bullet time, the fashions, the soundtrack, the comic book-as-live-action framing and styling – not to mention it being probably the first movie to embrace and reflect the burgeoning Internet ( Hackers doesn’t really count), and subsequently to really ride the crest of the DVD boom wave. And now? Now it’s still really, really good.

Twenty dwarves took turns doing handstands on the carpet.

Bugsy (1991) (SPOILERS) Bugsy is very much a Warren Beatty vanity project (aren’t they all, even the ones that don’t seem that way on the surface?), to the extent of his playing a title character a decade and a half younger than him. As such, it makes sense that producer Warren’s choice of director wouldn’t be inclined to overshadow star Warren, but the effect is to end up with a movie that, for all its considerable merits (including a script from James Toback chock full of incident), never really feels quite focussed, that it’s destined to lead anywhere, even if we know where it’s going.

Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

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