Foreplay: Babel (2006)
Never was a bad movie more aptly named. Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s continent-hopping melodrama goes from Morroco to Mexico to Los Angeles to Japan to become an instant camp classic. He brings the news all peoples on Planet Earth have problems—basically, their inability to understand each other because they speak different languages. By languages, A.G.I. means insurmountable class, race and cultural differences. He abuses the Biblical Tower of Babel as a metaphor for globalization. Cate Blanchett plays an actressy tourist in North Africa who’s misfortune sets off the tragic domino effect. Brad Pitt can do nothing to stop the spreading misery, just accept the blame of being an American W.A.S.P. That leaves a supporting cast of Latin and Asian sufferers who beg for viewers’ pity. Pity is what rich snobs give to the contemptable and multi-Oscar-winner Inarritu is rich.
Press Play: True Grit (1969)
John Wayne–Hollywood’s Mr. America–finally got his Academy Award playing Rooster Cogburn, a Texas Ranger who helps orphan Kim Darby hunt for her father’s killer. It’s a typical Henry Hathaway western but Wayne gives it classic status through his signature sense of goodness and masculine realness. You can’t teach this is acting school; it’s proof of the physical and emotional authority that makes Wayne an ideal movie actor. Country singer Glenn Campbell as the ingénue sidekick contrasts youth to Wayne’s seasoned gravity but the trick is: Wayne’s uncanny personal humor. Booze-bag gunslinger Cogburn makes fools of anyone who underestimates American exceptionalism. That idea is so irresistible that even those hipster Coen Brothers couldn’t help re-making it (but only half as well).
Playtime: Jaws (1975)
This is your last chance to go teasing movie sharks before the Summer is over. Steven Spielberg’s classic scary movie is a combination action-thriller and action-comedy. It’s not the death-by-big-mechanical-teeth that’s thrilling and funny but Spielberg’s out-in-the-open toying with audience expectation and still surprising them through crack timing and awesome, looming imagery. This is the movie that made his name.Jaws begins with bloody subtlety; swims into character depth (Roy Scheider, Richard Dreyfuss and Robert Shaw in a macho competition); and with John Williams’ unforgettable score raising anxiety, it all climaxes with exhilaration. Summer may be ending but Jaws will entertain forever.
The post In Bed With Netflix and Armond White appeared first on BlackBook.