But I wanna see The Blob!

Jersey Boys

(2014)

Unlike Hudson Hawk, I never did want to sing like Frankie Valli. So maybe the intrinsic appeal of this Clint Eastwood not-musical (I expect he swore of them after Paint Your Wagon), based on the broadway musical, is probably rather lost on me. It isn’t dislikeable as such, but it’s so slight and effort-free and really rather dull. Jersey Boys is so lightweight, it’s in danger of floating off into the firmament at any moment. A film so conscious that it’s diet-Goodfellas in tone and approach, it even overtly references its inspiration. Repeatedly.

Jersey Boys is also fairly poor name for a movie; what works in the realm of musical theatre may not translate to the big screen. Maybe The Four Seasons wouldn’t have cut it either, but the title doesn’t have pulling power. Musicals are hit and miss as cinema properties, of course, but – I don’t know how it went over on stage – you’d barely know this was one. Sure, it’s got the songs (sung impeccably by John Lloyd Young as Valli). Yet the biggest clue to its show origins is the to-camera monologues as various members of the group introduce different passages of the proceedings. Was Clint embarrassed to be doing an all-singing, all-dancing picture? Is that why he left the big number for credit roll?

And, is there sufficient draw here, outside of the (admittedly) memorable tunes? The mob trappings are very loose, and borderline benign (that Goodfellas-lite thing). Christopher Walken essays the most chucklesome made guy you ever did see, and light foots away with many of the biggest laughs (“Hey you – Stay out of my bathroom,” he instructs one of the group, on learning he is prone to pissing in the sink). But the sashaymeister only actually gets to show his moves during the final credits.

The rags-to-riches trajectory is tried-and-tested. As such, this comes across as very familiar, without nearly enough backbone or drama to make it distinct. There are scrapes with the law (but Frankie’s a good kid, see?), the arranging of the various band pieces to make a hit (the arrival of Erich Bergen’s songsmith Bob Gaudio), and the gradual disintegration of the group as Tommy DeVito (Vincent Piazza) becomes mired in debt. Then there are the infidelities (skirted lightly over) and family traumas (the death of Frankie’s daughter – don’t worry, it’s fairly light; everything is light). I found my interest piqued as the group fell apart and Frankie fell into the motions of a made-up backing band, before scoring a hit with the Gaudio-penned Can’t Take My Eyes Off You. But, by then, we’re nearly at the end.

And being nearly at the end means that the latex shuffle is needed. The youthful group members re-join as unconvincingly aged as Leo in J Edgar for their 1990 induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. So runs the course (barring overdose) of the utterly pedestrian musical biopic. But is there any other way to do them? There have been occasionally inspired snippets of bands’ histories (Backbeat) but even Oliver Stone at his height came unstuck with the verbatim regurgitation of a band in the full throes of psychotropic abandon (The Doors).

The cast are solid. Piazza walks off with the film in the showiest part as the cocky wannabe-hard guy; he’s already had good practice giving attitude as Lucky Luciano in Boardwalk Empire. Lloyd Young is (yes!) light and inconsequential, so fits the material. Bergen looks like both Tate Donovan and the disgraced Commander Decker. Mike Doyle plays up the flamboyance as Bob Crewe, but not so much that he becomes a complete caricature.

Admittedly, the film is peppered with good gags. A character is watching Clint in Rawhide at one point. Joe Pesci (Joey Russo), we discover, was a friend of Tommy (and after being bought out, Tommy went to work for Pesci), and was responsible for bringing them together with Gaudio. Pesci, inevitably, utters his most celebrated line “Funny how?” (no, not “They fuck you at the drive-through”) The taciturn Nick Massi (Michael Lomenda) finally goes into full meltdown mode over the 10 years he had to put up with Tommy, but the focus of his rage is his untidiness and poor hygiene (rather than squandering half a million he didn’t have).

Clint’s career probably looked on its last tired old legs. Jon Favreau was originally attached, and this seems exactly the sort of journeyman “What shall I stumble into next?” fare you’d expect from him. Clint has become that guy also, crashing from project to project like a wind-up toy, his Zimmer frame barely leaving any impression, so forgettable are the results. Then he made American Sniper and suddenly there’s patriotic zeal in abundance and queues round the block. He should have remade Kelly’s Heroes. There’s some wit in Jersey Boys, then, but it’s caught between two stools. It wants to come from the mean streets and yet indulge the musical chicanery of West Side Story. It probably worked better on stage.

Comments

She writes Twilight fan fiction.

Vampire Academy (2014)
My willingness to give writer Daniel Waters some slack on the grounds of early glories sometimes pays off (Sex and Death 101) and sometimes, as with this messy and indistinct Young Adult adaptation, it doesn’t. If Vampire Academy plods along as a less than innovative smart-mouthed Buffy rip-off that might be because, if you added vampires to Heathers, you would probably get something not so far from the world of Joss Whedon. Unfortunately inspiration is a low ebb throughout, not helped any by tepid direction from Daniel’s sometimes-reliable brother Mark and a couple of hopelessly plankish leads who do their best to dampen down any wit that occasionally attempts to surface.

I can only presume there’s a never-ending pile of Young Adult fiction poised for big screen failure, all of it comprising multi-novel storylines just begging for a moment in the Sun. Every time an adaptation crashes and burns (and the odds are that they will) another one rises, hydra-like, hoping…

Rejoice! The broken are the more evolved. Rejoice.

Split (2016)
(SPOILERS) M Night Shyamalan went from the toast of twist-based filmmaking to a one-trick pony to the object of abject ridicule in the space of only a couple of pictures: quite a feat. Along the way, I’ve managed to miss several of his pictures, including his last, The Visit, regarded as something of a re-locating of his footing in the low budget horror arena. Split continues that genre readjustment, another Blumhouse production, one that also manages to bridge the gap with the fare that made him famous. But it’s a thematically uneasy film, marrying shlock and serious subject matter in ways that don’t always quite gel.

Shyamalan has seized on a horror staple – nubile teenage girls in peril, prey to a psychotic antagonist – and, no doubt with the best intentions, attempted to warp it. But, in so doing, he has dragged in themes and threads from other, more meritable fare, with the consequence that, in the end, the conflicting positions rather subvert his attempts at subversion…

My name is Dr. King Schultz, this is my valet, Django, and these are our horses, Fritz, and Tony.

Django Unchained (2012)
(MINOR SPOILERS) Since the painful misstep of Grindhouse/Death Proof, Quentin Tarantino has regained the higher ground like never before. Pulp Fiction, his previous commercial and critical peak, has been at very least equalled by the back-to-back hits of Inglourious Basterds and Django Unchained. Having been underwhelmed by his post Pulp Fiction efforts (albeit, I admired his technical advances as a director in Kill Bill), I was pleasantly surprised by Inglourious Basterds. It was no work of genius (so not Pulp Fiction) by any means, but there was a gleeful irreverence in its treatment of history and even to the nominal heroic status of its titular protagonists. Tonally, it was a good fit for the director’s “cool” aesthetic. As a purveyor of postmodern pastiche, where the surface level is the subtext, in some ways he was operating at his zenith. Django Unchained is a retreat from that position, the director caught in the tug between his all-important aesthetic pr…

I don’t think you will see President Pierce again.

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018)
(SPOILERS) The Ballad of Buster Scruggs and other tall tales of the American frontier is the title of "the book" from which the Coen brothers' latest derives, and so announces itself as fiction up front as heavily as Fargo purported to be based on a true story. In the world of the portmanteau western – has there even been one before? – theme and content aren't really all that distinct from the more familiar horror collection, and as such, these six tales rely on sudden twists or reveals, most of them revolving around death. And inevitably with the anthology, some tall tales are stronger than other tall tales, the former dutifully taking up the slack.

Can you float through the air when you smell a delicious pie?

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)
(SPOILERS) Ironically, given the source material, think I probably fell into the category of many who weren't overly disposed to give this big screen Spider-Man a go on the grounds that it was an animation. After all, if it wasn’t "good enough" for live-action, why should I give it my time? Not even Phil Lord and Christopher Miller's pedigree wholly persuaded me; they'd had their stumble of late, although admittedly in that live-action arena. As such, it was only the near-unanimous critics' approval that swayed me, suggesting I'd have been missing out. They – not always the most reliable arbiters of such populist fare, which made the vote of confidence all the more notable – were right. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is not only a first-rate Spider-Man movie, it's a fresh, playful and (perhaps) surprisingly heartfelt origins story.

You look like an angry lizard!

Bohemian Rhapsody (2018)
(SPOILERS) I can quite see a Queen fan begrudging this latest musical biopic for failing to adhere to the facts of their illustrious career – but then, what biopic does steer a straight and true course? – making it ironic that they're the main fuel for Bohemian Rhapsody's box office success. Most other criticisms – and they're legitimate, on the whole – fall away in the face of a hugely charismatic star turn from Rami Malek as the band's frontman. He's the difference between a standard-issue, episodic, join-the-dots narrative and one that occasionally touches greatness, and most importantly, carries emotional heft.

I'm a sort of travelling time expert.

Doctor Who Season 12 – Worst to Best
Season 12 isn’t the best season of Doctor Who by any means, but it’s rightly recognised as one of the most iconic, and it’s easily one of the most watchable. Not so much for its returning roster of monsters – arguably, only one of them is in finest of fettle – as its line-up of TARDIS crew members. Who may be fellow travellers, but they definitely aren’t “mates”. Thank goodness. Its popularity – and the small matters of it being the earliest season held in its entirety in original broadcast form, and being quite short – make it easy to see why it was picked for the first Blu-ray boxset.

Must the duck be here?

The Favourite (2018)
(SPOILERS) In my review of The Killing of a Sacred Deer, I suggested The Favourite might be a Yorgos Lanthimos movie for those who don’t like Yorgos Lanthimos movies. At least, that’s what I’d heard. And certainly, it’s more accessible than either of his previous pictures, the first two thirds resembling a kind of Carry On Up the Greenaway, but despite these broader, more slapstick elements and abundant caustic humour, there’s a prevailing detachment on the part of the director, a distancing oversight that rather suggests he doesn’t feel very much for his subjects, no matter how much they emote, suffer or connive. Or pratfall.

There's something wrong with the sky.

Hold the Dark (2018)
(SPOILERS) Hold the Dark, an adaptation of William Giraldi's 2014 novel, is big on atmosphere, as you'd expect from director Jeremy Saulnier (Blue Ruin, Green Room) and actor-now-director (I Don’t Want to Live in This World Anymore) pal Macon Blair (furnishing the screenplay and appearing in one scene), but contrastingly low on satisfying resolutions. Being wilfully oblique can be a winner if you’re entirely sure what you're trying to achieve, but the effect here is rather that it’s "for the sake of it" than purposeful.

I don’t know if what is happening is fair, but it’s the only thing I can think of that’s close to justice.

The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017)
(SPOILERS) I think I knew I wasn’t going to like The Killing of a Sacred Deer in the first five minutes. And that was without the unedifying sight of open-heart surgery that takes up the first four. Yorgos Lanthimos is something of a Marmite director, and my responses to this and his previous The Lobster (which I merely thought was “okay” after exhausting its thin premise) haven’t induced me to check out his earlier work. Of course, he has now come out with a film that, reputedly, even his naysayers will like, awards-darling The Favourite…

Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

Search This Blog