Femme Fatales, Dizzy Dames & the Sad '70s Saps Who Rescue Them: "The Nice Guys" & "Inherent Vice"

The Nice Guys (2016)
Inherent Vice (2014)

The Nice Guys came on cable again recently. It reminded me anew of how the time-worn themes of the femme fatale and the damsel in distress are played out, again and again, even in contemporary cinema.

Mysterious, unknowable, sexually enticing, and often speaking in riddles, the femme fatale traditionally uses her allure -- knowingly or unknowingly -- to draw the male lead into a mystery, trap, or caper of some kind. As moviemaking has evolved with the culture over the decades, a twist on the femme fatale trope has emerged: That of the ditzy female, usually blonde, whose blithe ignorance gets her into hot water that she must be rescued from, usually by a man who appoints himself her savior. For both the Dizzy Dames and the Femme Fatales, the man endures all manner of humiliation, deprivation, danger and bodily harm to safeguard the clueless woman. The dizzy dame plot and its variations have most often fueled any number of screen comedies (Who’s That Girl, Desperately Seeking Susan, Butterflies Are Free, Something Wild, The Seven-Year Itch, Splash, Breakfast At Tiffany’s, Born Yesterday, etc.), but they can be the centerpiece of dramas as well.

Set in 1977 Los Angeles, with all the attendant bellbottoms and disco beats, the story of Nice Guys follows the entangled paths of Jackson Healy, an enforcer for hire played by Russell Crowe, and failing private investigator Holland March, played by Ryan Gosling, who’s got a mortgage and a wanna-be-grown pre-teen daughter. The two men cross paths “cute” – Healy is hired to bang up March at his L.A. hilltop bungalow to warn him off a case – and they reluctantly join forces to locate a porn star who may or may not have died in a car crash, which leads them to the trail of the missing daughter of a local Justice Department official. In the process, the two heroes squabble like Felix and Oscar, ride around a sun-drenched Hollywood in a convertible Cadillac (I would swear that Gosling drives the same Caddy in La La Land), trade blows with bad guys, and stumble through a decadent Hollywood Hills party in search of film footage with the potential to bring down a struggling automaker.

The film, directed by Shane Black, is supposed to be a neo-noir thriller, but its overarching sunniness and toothless sense of danger play more like an original ‘70s episode of Starsky & Hutch than anything approaching Chinatown.

Gosling’s shambling loser character, Holland March, gets a veneer of sympathy for the “cute” relationship he has with his daughter, whom he’s raising alone. But with the two heroes already chest deep in doo-doo chasing after a nudie star and a hippy activist, he loses points in my eyes for cluing in his precocious 13-year-old daughter to all the details of the case as though she’s an adult, leading her to take an active role in their investigation with dire – and comic -- consequences. This is a movie that thinks everything little (white) girls do – no matter how clueless, ill-timed, illogical, or useless, whether they’re 12 or 22 – is somehow just adorable, even as it puts them and everyone around them in peril and requires incredible feats of human endurance to rescue them from.

The plot is overly complicated and somewhat silly, and somehow we the audience are supposed to take a liking to these two endearing, bumbling mercenaries—Nice Guys!-- who just want to do the right thing – for the right price. It’s a pleasant enough romp with some great nostalgic 70s music (the soundtrack boasts Kool & the Gang, EWF, the Bee Gees, America, Kiss, Al Green and more). But it’s hard to drum up enough sympathy for the two leading men or the fallen angels they’re trying to find. While Crowe and Gosling – who reportedly took the roles so that they could work together – seem to be having a rip-roaring good time, It’s no mystery why Nice Guys flopped at the box office.

Nice Guys reminded me of a movie I’d gone to the theater to see a couple of years ago, 2014’s Inherent Vice, adapted from a novel by Thomas Pynchon – an author whose work has previously been dubbed unfilmable. Director Paul Thomas Anderson, known for difficult, somewhat obtuse material such as There Will Be Blood and The Master, takes a stab at it.

Also set in the Southern California of the early ‘70s, and also about an addled private eye trying to track down a missing person, the flick stars Joaquin Phoenix as Doc, who spends most of his time getting stoned in the beachfront Malibu home he’s barely holding on to. When his beautifully mysterious hippy ex-girlfriend shows up asking for help locating her boyfriend, a wealthy married real estate developer, Doc decides to take the case out of nostalgia for their lost relationship. The result is a labyrinthine and damn near incomprehensible journey throughout the length and breadth of Los Angeles County, as Doc agrees to take on two more equally perplexing missing person cases that confuse and confound him – not to mention the viewing audience.

Along the way Doc encounters a brutal police captain (Josh Brolin), an eccentric attorney (Benicio del Toro), Chinese massage parlor hookers, a bizarre sanitarium, the misuse of laughing gas, fatal speedballs, an Asian ghost ship, and enough weed smoke for three Cheech & Chong movies. The plot is almost too internecine to be followed and begs multiple viewings. Indeed, the title should be "Incoherent Vice." Also billed as a neo-noir dramedy, Inherent Vice combines some kooky characters with a wacked-out atmosphere and a loose-limbed sense of the absurd.

Still, it’s kind of fun to see Joaquin Phoenix disappear completely into yet another oddball character in his filmography (as he did with Paul Anderson’s The Master), and the unique narrative is helped along by the brilliantly zany Josh Brolin and the ever-quirky Benicio del Toro, along with appearances by Reese Witherspoon, Maya Rudolph, Eric Roberts, Owen Wilson, and others.

His Doc is a Dude without much philosophy of his own and way more of a marijuana haze than a series of White Russians can impart. As a result, Inherent Vice can be viewed as a study in murky moods and how actors embody challenging roles. It’s the sort of film that will give you a hangover.

Lost In The Sauce: "Roman J. Israel, Esq."

Roman J. Israel, Esq.
Directed by Dan Gilroy
Starring Denzel Washington

Our fast-paced technological culture speeds along with new information, innovations, and tech-enabled practices at a rate that some of us can scarcely wrap our minds around. Further, this culture shames, ridicules, and writes off anyone who can't keep up. Those people are a. Lazy, b. stupid, c. useless, and d. stuck in the past. So say the culture gurus, the tech entrepreneurs, and the millennial wiz kids. Get with the program or get left behind. Except some of us spent a lot of time and energy getting good--indeed, expert-- at things that may now be considered obsolete. Faced with radical change, some of us have trouble adapting. Some may be forced to start over and may not adapt at all. Some adapt, always running a step behind. And some, faced with the eradication of a world they once knew well and forced to navigate a landscape where they feel lost and uncomfortable, grow bitter and disillusioned. Not everyone is cut out to be cutting edge.

These are some of the thoughts I had watching Roman J. Israel, Esq., the new film starring Oscar winner Denzel Washington.

Roman is a socially maladjusted, stuck-in-the-1970s legal wizard who is relegated to the back room of a Los Angeles law practice to do extensive research and legal strategy, while his universally admired law partner pleads the cases in public. Deeply committed to justice, with an encyclopedic knowledge of the law and a dogged sense of persistence, Roman seems to have made his peace with his role as the power behind the throne. Subsisting on peanut butter, engulfed in the sounds of classic soul and jazz recordings, and reliving his own halcyon days as a committed advocate of grassroots organizing for political change at a time when the Black Panthers were news, Roman has turned his tumbledown Koreatown apartment and his cluttered downtown office into a well-fortified, protective bubble against modern times. Until the day the bubble bursts, and Roman discovers that the throne was really just a rickety chair.

Change arrives in the form of a slick-suited corporate attorney named George Pierce (Colin Farrell), named by Roman's law partner and his family to liquidate the company now that the partner has had a heart attack. George quickly shatters Roman's illusions. The firm was in debt. The crusading law partner he so admired was engaged in kickbacks. And the partner's largesse, keeping Roman on the payroll but out of sight for years, has made him not just unfit to run the firm on his own, but damn near unemployable anywhere else. Despite Roman's efforts to get hired on elsewhere, he is forced to take the pity position George holds out to him at his fancy schmancy, high-cost, high-rise law firm where Roman's musty wide-lapel suits, puffed out fro, and no-filter pronouncements just don't fit in.

Roman's attempts to get with the program and prove that he can lawyer with the best of them lead him to make a major gaffe on a murder case that could attract a malpractice suit to his new firm. He presents his pet project, a long-labored-over bill to reduce plea bargaining and excessive sentencing, to George and is rejected. Then his attempt to give a presentation to a group of young, potential activists breaks down over gender politics. He's discomfited by the interest and admiration of Maya, a non-profit organizer he's met during his job search. Tired of being wrong, even as he tries to do what's right, and tired of being last while others seem to go first, Roman makes an illegal grab for a gold ring so that he can get a taste of the high life. Even as he regrets the move and attempts to right it, he is doomed by his decision.

Denzel does his usual bang-up job giving us a convincing portrait of a character we don't see every day. But while autism is hinted at, we never find out exactly what Roman has been diagnosed with or its specific effect on his life, other than spouting unedited phrases like "enemas of sunshine" (which I'm going to adopt in place of "bullshit", lol) and eating Jif every night. His law partner, painted as an eminent civil rights hero, is never shown on screen. And in scenes where he consults with the suspects in a grocery store killing, Roman doesn't have any problems communicating. While his character is being pressured on all sides, the choice that he makes to trade privileged information for reward money seems to come out of nowhere. Elsewhere in the film, Farrell's George Pierce can't decide if he is a cold-hearted corporate villain or a touchy-feely mentor. And Carmen Ejogo tries to give the character of Maya a committed center, but her attraction to Roman seems unrealistic as well.

It's far from a perfect film. But I think it's worth seeing. It made me think about how our culture leaves little room for people with differences, and how the desperation of being caught up in changing circumstances can tempt us, under pressure, to move the needle on our own moral compasses. Hold tight to your convictions, people. We're moving faster than ever, but don't lose your grip on your soul.

5 Tips to Watch a Movie Like A Pro!

I was coming out of the theater after watching Denzel Washington and Viola Davis give bravura performances in Washington’s screen adaptation of August Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning drama Fences. A person walking ahead of me said to his companion, “God, that was awful.” The companion agreed: “Worst Denzel movie ever.”

I was stunned. What film were they watching? Further, what film had they been expecting that they judged this so harshly? Yes, the subject matter was occasionally grim. Denzel’s character was not a classic hero. However, a film’s subject can be troubling, sad, thought-provoking, and harsh and be an excellent film with powerful acting and incredible insight in dealing with its themes.

It occurred to me once again that most people go to the movies to be entertained on a level that only speaks to their own life experience. Blockbusters and horror movies do well because they offer thrills that people don’t often get in real life; quieter films that focus on character and dialogue require more work from the audience and often struggle to make back their investments.

Rarely do most people view a film from a larger perspective, which considers all the arts and crafts of filmmaking. But once you open your eyes to other aspects of the film beyond the story and the cast, or how you personally relate to them, you can evaluate what you’re watching and appreciate it on a whole new level. You won’t just like or dislike a flick, you’ll understand what the creative team actually did to make you like or dislike the film – like standing behind the curtain with the Great And Powerful Oz understanding what levers and buttons were pushed while the film was made to produce the overall project. Once you get a glimpse at that, it’s hard to watch a movie any other way.

Here are five underrated tips for watching a movie:

1. Know your film genres.
There’s westerns, psychological thrillers, romantic comedies, crime dramas, satires, war films, adventures, historical dramas, period dramas, science fiction, and coming-of-age films, to name just a few. These longstanding genres have defined conventions, a standard map for how the story proceeds. Romances usually follow the boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl formula, embellished with complications. Adventures usually involve a hero’s journey, a race against time and opposing forces to achieve a goal. Westerns usually have a lone character arriving in a frontier town of the past and must fight against a personal or societal wrong. Whatever the genre, the main character must undergo some kind of change by the end: they finally go home/leave, they win/lose the fight, they fall in/out of love, they alter their beliefs/lifestyle/income/moral standards.
Today, most films combine or twist the genres to create something new. How well a film fulfills, expands, or breaks with the expected tropes of its particular genre-defying audience expectations -- is another measure of its success. One example is “Get Out,” which adds a layer of racial prejudice and paranoia along with an African American hero to create a contemporary and shocking story. Some stories add irony whereby, despite all that has happened, a character does not change by the end of the film though everyone around him/her does. Ask yourself what genre does the film you’re watching fit into? How does it compare with other films in the genre?

2. Understand the difference between casting and acting.
For many audiences, acting caliber is tough to gauge. Often, characters in a film are cast with certain stars because they add built-in characteristics and appeal. We like Denzel because he looks like us or like someone we know; he’s usually badass and smooth; and while he’s a great actor, he rarely plays a character that isn’t basically … him, or who we perceive him to be. With Denzel in a role, the audience has a certain expectation that is different than what Leonardo di Caprio or Johnny Depp would bring. But actors are still not their characters. Just ask John Boyega, who played Finn in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and recently caught flak from Star Wars fans for engaging in a little sexually suggestive West Indian “wining” at a British Carnival celebration, something they feel Finn shouldn’t do. The skill of acting is in embodying another character in such a way that we experience them as real.
When watching, ask yourself: At any moment in the film, did I forget I was watching [fill in name of actor]? How did they use their speech, facial expressions, physicality to create this character? Was I emotionally impacted by their character’s dilemma, or was I just watching events unfold?

3. Look at everything presented on the screen.
Because film is a visual medium, it uses coded images and visual cues to communicate information not spoken by the characters. From the first scenes establishing time and place, we’re going to get a lot of this non-dialogue info. In many major studio productions, color and lighting are strong indicators of relationships, moods, even foreshadowing of events. Heroes still tend to wear white or light colors, and villains still wear black or dark colors. Watch the shade of a character’s clothing change or remain static as they grapple with events: the darker their clothing, the darker their intentions, and the lighter their clothing, the more we see them as sincere or heroic. Loud colors or prints reflect a loud or scattered personality, Like-minded characters tend to wear like colors; for instance, in a romance, the closer the two leads come to becoming lovers, the more the colors of their outfits begin to coordinate. A female character who is seeking to cause trouble or set a sexual trap will wear or carry something red. Further, a character whose face appears in partial shadow (as with the stripes from venetian blinds) is likely in deep trouble or is even doomed. Many directors like to use themes or recurring images to evoke responses in the audience; for instance, in Beyond The Lights, most of pop star Noni’s stage costumes featured chains and straps, which communicated that she was basically a captive of her lifestyle. Cats are used to indicate stealth or mystery, birds to represent freedom, etc.; a shot framing the character as small in a huge landscape indicates the scale of forces arrayed against him/her or their sense of singularity or loneliness. Not all films use these tropes, but they have been in use since Hollywood began so it’s useful to look for them.

4. Listen harder to the dialogue as well as the non-dialogue.
I took acting classes for a while in LA, not to be an actor but to improve the dialogue in my writing. I learned that dialogue works best when it exists on two levels: What the character is actually saying, and what they really mean. A character can respond “Fine” to the question “how are you?” a dozen different ways, and it becomes a lot more interesting if “Fine” really means “Stop asking me, I’ll be all right,” or “I hate you but I’m trying to be civil,” or “I’m crumbling but I must appear strong,” or “I just had the most sexually stimulating night of my life but that’s not your business.” Double entendre, irony, and lies reveal who the character really is. What the character chooses not to say, fails to say, or is struggling to say is just as important as the words that do come out of their mouths.

5. Listen harder to the music.
I spend two decades writing about popular music, so how music is used in film is important to me. I’m a fan of the well-considered multi-tune soundtrack, where films use previously recorded popular music to underscore the mood or setting in a film. This works because the audience is usually already familiar with these type of tracks and the impact of that music is immediate. Most often the music supervisor and director will choose songs specifically because the lyrics perfectly communicate the feelings of the character or sum up the action. The best use of this technique that I’ve seen recently is Baby Driver; the character of Baby doesn’t speak much but his iTunes playlist communicates not only his thoughts and feelings, but the tracks dictate how he physically moves through the world. The music of O Brother Where Art Thou perfectly creates the time and place, the South in the 1930s, with new recordings of classic bluegrass, blues, and roots gospel; the tune “Man of Constant Sorrow” is an equivalent musical narrative of the lead character’s Ulysses-like quest. Straight Outta Compton didn’t just use the music of N.W.A. in telling their story, it also used hit songs from the era to establish the time and place. Film scoring is just as important, though less appreciated by the public at large. A composed score also sets time, place, and most importantly the mood of a film. Often, the score creates musical motifs or themes for each character, and can ramp up tension and excitement. Notice how music enhances the overall project.

Other points of film analysis include the cinematography, costuming, set design, location, the structure of the script, the production values, and most importantly, what is the film’s overall message or argument — but that’s for more advanced viewing. The five points above are simple ways to begin actively watching a movie that can add to your overall viewing pleasure and give you more of a critic’s eye view.

So grab your popcorn and your Junior Mints and enjoy!

'Taxi Driver' Revisited: Racism, Revenge, and the 'Working Class Hero'

Taxi Driver
directed by Martin Scorsese
starring Robert DeNiro, Cybill Shepherd, Jodie Foster, Harvey Keitel, and Albert Brooks

Since The Deuce was getting ready to premiere on HBO, about the triple X theaters and prostitution in dirty, old '70s New York, I took another gander at Taxi Driver. I remember seeing it in the theater when it first came out, when I was still a teen. I viewed it through a teenager's lens. It was then a film about a deeply disturbed, misguided individual bent on making his mark in the big city and in some way rising above the lot that was dealt to him. That's how I interpreted the movie then.

I've seen Taxi Driver several times since. It's not my favorite Scorsese film; there is something deeply disturbing, subversive, and depraved about it in addition to its surface violence and depiction of New York's underworld. And I'm embarrassed to say that only recently has the film's profound and pathological racism gotten under my skin. It could be the fact of my age, or the current political and social climate where a certain stratum of white people have found it perfectly acceptable to air and act upon their racist views.

How could I ignore the racism in previous viewings? Well, as a woman of color who loves storytelling on screen, I've had to shift my thinking. After all, until very recently, most films produced by Hollywood have either racist or misogynist imagery, messages, and world views. Like black people who code switch, changing up their verbal expression depending on whether they are speaking to blacks or to whites, I had to switch up my mind -- and repress my outrage -- in order to accept the realities portrayed in most films. Yes, it can make you dizzy and a little bit schizophrenic, but that's the way things are in a world where white skin and white values are treated as the unquestionable default setting. I learned to take things at face value, to look at the art and dissect it later. Watching Taxi Driver this week, at this age (almost 60), and in this climate of racial unrest, gave me a new perspective on the film.

Travis Bickle appears to be just your average, middle American, working-class guy -- today, probably your classic Trump voter. He's served his country by fighting in Vietnam. He comes to New York with dreams of making something of himself but the reality appalls him: the film's imagery seems to show that he views the city as a cesspool, overrun with crime and filth but most of all, overrun with black people. He wants to make America great again, and in his mind, the way to do it is to strike back against those responsible.

It's no accident that his story unfurls against the background of a political campaign, with Palantine representing the liberal, laissez-faire, college-educated, progressive class. Bickle says he's not into politics, but his impossible pursuit of Cybill Shepherd's upper-crust campaign worker is rooted in the struggle between the working class and the privileged class. He's attracted to Betsy not so much in a romantic way, because his character is oddly inexperienced and asexual, but because of the white values she represents, and everything to which he feels he is entitled. He pursues her because of an irrepressible desire to win and then to humiliate her, knock her down several pegs, and bring her down to his level. That's really why he takes her to a Triple X film, to rub her face in filth.

Yet, the audience is supposed to view Travis as an upstanding young man. He works hard. He's served his country. He writes long (misleading)letters to the folks back home, and even sends them money. He takes neither drugs nor drink. And his motives in saving a 12-year-old prostitute from the streets are entirely motivated by his sense of kindness and justice.

Travis' unspoken bigotry against blacks builds through the film's imagery and reaction shots over several scenes. But it becomes palpable in the scene where he drives a vengeful husband, played by Scorsese himself, to a street corner to sit and watch a woman's silhouette in a second-floor window. "That's my wife up there," says the passenger. "You know who lives there? You know who lives there? A n----r lives there." Travis says nothing as the raving passenger declares that he's going to shoot both the wife and her lover and describes how he plans to maim her. Travis' silence in the face of this rant shows unspoken agreement, tacit approval of this plan, for certainly a white woman deserves retribution not only for adultery but a truly violent end for consorting with a black man.

The mood carries over to the very next scene, where Travis stops at a late-night cafeteria where fellow taxi drivers hang out. As he gets his coffee, a group of drivers gossip, with the Wizard telling a story about a gay couple who come to blows in his cab. Wizard says he doesn't care what two men do in the privacy of their own homes, a statement that lowers him in Travis' eyes. The only African American driver sits somewhat apart from the group, wearing darker clothes and dark glasses over his dark face. "Travis, you got that money you owe me?" His question carries with it a sense of a threat. Coming so soon after the previous scene, the audience can't help but unconsciously associate the black taxi driver with the unseen black lover who may or may not catch a bullet for daring to touch a white man's wife. Travis immediately pays up without a word.

Already in turmoil about his inarticulate feelings of rage and frustration, Travis then seeks advice from The Wizard, the taxi drivers' acknowledged leader, played by Peter Boyle, but it's an exercise in futility; the Wizard lost his authority with Travis the minute he admitted that he had a level of acceptance for gays. Wizard's rambling, "we're all fucked anyway" advice to take it easy or just get laid is toothless and somewhat immoral as far as Travis is concerned. "That's the dumbest thing I ever heard," says Travis to the Wizard's no-help help. No, the Wizard and other "gutless" whites were part of the problem, not the solution, thinks Travis. His attitude is underscored at the start of the scene by a black man who passes by and stares Travis down. The camera follows to a couple of black prostitutes being harassed by young black boys on the corner. Black people are the source of all societal ills, is what the film seems to say.

It is right after this that Travis makes up his mind to do something about it, and gains an introduction to the traveling gun salesman Easy Andy, who also makes disparaging comments about blacks ("I could sell this to a jungle bunny in Harlem for 500 bucks, but I only sell high-quality goods to the right people," he says). The camera lingers lovingly across a broad arsenal of weapons, most of which Travis purchases. The scene is a reminder to me of middle America's "pry it out of my cold dead hands" love of gun ownership, of all of those voters who refuse to pass legislation banning or limiting guns; at its core, this idea that average Americans (whites) should not be deprived of access to weapons stems from -- I believe -- a profound fear and hatred of people of color and the deep-seated belief that the only way to keep them in their place is through the use of violent force masquerading as self-defense.

The film doesn't completely follow through with its racist convictions in the casting of Harvey Keitel as the pimp Sport, who manages Iris. But Keitel's portrayal indicates an ethnic flair (Puerto Rican, wigger?). I read that in the original Paul Schrader script, all of the victims of Travis' final-reel killing spree were African-American, but that was changed so as not to completely offend audiences of color. The race of Sport was probably changed for the same reason.

In the end, psychotic, bigoted, trigger-happy Travis gets away with his threat to Palantine as well as the serial murder of several lowlifes because he was saving a young white girl, the streetwalker Iris (who never asked him to save her). He is in fact celebrated for his actions. Iris' parents send him glowing letters of thanks, he receives public accolades, and even Betsy, whom he picks up in his taxi later, expresses admiration.

Travis Bickle is a hero to many, which is why his "You talking to me?" monologue continues to be so celebrated. While it is a bravura piece of acting, it's also the "don't fuck with me" challenge of a man who is ready to face down all threats, emboldened by the gun concealed up his sleeve. Revenge is one of America's favorite narratives, on and off the screen. Bickle gets his. He walks among us and he's probably just getting started.

The Endless Fascination With Heavenly Hookers

Since movies began, writers and directors have been obsessed with the idea of the "fallen woman," "the good-time girl," and denizens of the "house of ill repute." From the view of Mary Magdalene being a fallen woman on down through history, novels and films have focused on the "ruination" of women. Watching many of these films as a girl, I internalized some very strange, conflicting, confusing, illogical, misogynist, and paternalistic views of sexuality, what constitutes "acceptable" female behavior, and the parameters of heteronormative relationships.

After all, classic Hollywood had its morality code that was supposed to reflect societal norms. Women were somehow supposed to be chaste and virginal until marriage, and then to be completely devoted, loyal, and submissive to their husbands afterward. But movies being movies, there were multiple narratives about women who didn't follow that path, and there was often hell to pay. So many classic stories up through even the early 20th century involve women characters publicly shunned for being unmarried yet no longer virgins; for being "easy" or "familiar" with one or several men. The shame, the infamy, and the social condemnation that showers down on many of the big screen's female characters -- for being adulterers, courtesans, mistresses and prostitutes -- is stunning.

In many films, the femme fatale, or the woman who dares to flout sexual conventions, pays for her transgressions by losing her her mind or even her life (Butterfield 8, Carmen Jones). The moral to women -- particularly in films from the 1930s through the 1960s -- is to stay chaste and stay in their place until their one true love comes along and transforms and legitimizes them through marriage. Otherwise, they can expect to be outcast and condemned. Oddly, even today, where we supposedly have way more information about sex and sexual desire, and where the sexes are supposed to have equality and freedom of sexual expression, society continues to slut-shame women who have multiple sexual partners.

And yet, paradoxically, the mythology of the bad girl persists in the narrative imagination, spawning dozens of narratives in which their lives are romanticized, idolized, fetishized and admired for their flouting of convention, for their sexual prowess and their power over men. In fact, it seems like most men are gaga over prostitutes. Is it that they view them as honest and straightforward, providing what men see as a valuable combination of service with comfort, but without strings or emotional baggage? Are they embodiments of what men see as the perfect even exchange -- sex for money? If so, prostitutes can't help but gain a disproportionate regard in the male imagination. Just look at the films! While it's true that prostitutes exist in our society, the number of films involving them as protagonists appears to be vastly out of proportion with the rate at which women are working prostitutes in real life.

Yes, ladies who put out for money or favors -- or just because they actually like sex -- remain an endless source of fascination. The cliche of the "whore with a heart of gold" is still prominently featured in a number of films.

So alluring are these "bad" girls that there are a number of screen examples of men falling in love with prostitutes (Leaving Las Vegas, The Duchess & the Dirtwater Fox, Cinderella Liberty, Klute, Mona Lisa, L.A. Confidential, The Owl & the Pussycat, Irma LaDouce, Risky Business, The World of Suzy Wong, and Pretty Woman, to name only a few.) These same men then have to come to terms with the fact that the women continue to work their trade.

"No, I didn't quit. Did you quit?" spits call girl Shelley Long to Henry Winkler, the morgue director and financial wiz-turned-reluctant pimp, as she gets dressed to meet a john the day after they sleep together in the otherwise hilarious comedy Night Shift. Other stories show couples who fall on hard times and the women take to prostitution to help them survive (or at least get their next drug fix, as in Requiem for a Dream).

And lest you think that this obsession with whoredom in Hollywood is an exaggeration, look at how many hooker portrayals have garnered major awards attention! Here are ten from recent memory:

1. Butterfield 8 (1960, drama) - A 1950s potboiler about a doomed, high-class Manhattan call girl (Elizabeth Taylor) who falls in love with a married businessman and teeters on the edge of self-destruction and regret when he won't leave his wife for her. An Oscar for Taylor.

2. Cinderella Liberty (1973, drama) - Pregnant Seattle good time girl Marsha Mason hooks up with sailor James Caan, who is waiting for a missing check from the Navy. After birthing the stillborn baby of another man, she splits, leaving the sailor to raise her black son. Oscar nominated, Golden Globe winner.

3. Elmer Gantry (1960, drama) - In this screen adaptation of a Sinclair Lewis novel, a fast-talking traveling salesman (Burt Lancaster) helps expand the empire of a pretty evangelist (Jean Simmons) he falls in love with, only to be betrayed as a fraud by the small town girl he abandoned and since turned prostitute (Shirley Jones). An Oscar for Jones.

4. Irma La Douce (1963, musical) - In Beaux Arts era Paris, the gendarme (Jack Lemmon) who busts up a Parisian prostitution ring is fired, Now in love and shacked up with prostitute Irma La Douce (Shirley MacLaine) and must work double time to fend off her former pimp and keep her from sleeping with other clients. A Golden Globe for MacLaine.

5. Klute (1971, drama) - Sophisticated '70s New York call girl Jane Fonda falls for Donald Sutherland, the detective assigned to investigate the serial murders of several of her call girl friends. An Oscar for Fonda.

6. L.A. Confidential (1997, drama) - Investigating a gangland murder in 1940s Los Angeles, LAPD detective Bud White (Russell Crowe) unravels a web of crime and deceit. In the process, he falls in love with a high-class call girl who resembles then-screen goddess Veronica Lake (Kim Basinger). An Oscar for Basinger.

7. Leaving Las Vegas (1995, drama) - Failed Hollywood writer and hopeless drunk Nicholas Cage hooks up with tenderhearted hooker Elisabeth Shue who cares for him lovingly as he drinks himself to death. An Oscar for Shue.

8. Mighty Aphrodite (1995, comedy) - In this contemporary comedy using Greek mythology as a framing device (Aphrodite being the goddess of love), writer Woody Allen is dumbfounded to discover that the biological mother of his genius adopted son is a dimwitted, wisecracking New York prostitute (Mira Sorvino). He sets out to renovate her life with unforeseen results. An Oscar for Sorvino.

9. Monster (2003, drama) - True life crime drama about Aileen Wuornos, a prostitute in Daytona Beach who begins killing off johns. An Oscar for star Charlize Theron.

10. Pretty Woman (1990, dramedy)- Hollywood hooker Julia Roberts is picked up off the street by rich executive Richard Gere, who falls in love and decides to keep her for himself (the ultimate fantasy for each sex -- a woman wants a rich man who will forgive all her transgressions and love her for herself, while a man wants to find a woman who will perform whatever selfless sexual fantasies he wants in bed but who cleans up enough to stomp divets at the tony polo match). Roberts was Oscar nominated but took home a Golden Globe.

There are dozens of other films with these themes that didn't earn the same accolades. Suffice to say: The fascination with heavenly hookers continues apace. Now get set for the new HBO drama The Deuce, which examines the underworld of Times Square in the 1970s, and follows a disparate group of prostitutes, pimps, business owners and filmmakers as they launch the modern-day porn film industry.

Final Thoughts On 2017 Academy Awards

The 2017 Academy Awards ceremony was held on Sunday, February 27. The ceremony will be forever remembered for a major goof on the last award, Best Picture, where presenters Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway were given the wrong envelope, a duplicate of the Best Actress Award. As a result they announced La La Land as the best picture winner, until the gaffe was corrected and Moonlight was announced. You can see the entire winners list here.
On Monday Feb. 28, I posted some final thoughts on FaceBook that seemed to resonate with a lot of people (as of this posting, 100 reactions, 49 comments, 2 shares, and counting). Some people disagreed with my point about Moonlight, saying it was robbed of its moment. Anyway, I'm sharing my FB post here for posterity.

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My final thoughts on the Oscars 2017:

1. Not everything is a conspiracy. Human beings make mistakes.

2. The Best Picture Award Snafu did not rob Moonlight of its glory. If anything, it emphasized it. That mixup was the perfect metaphor for new, independent, diverse Hollywood disrupting old, status quo, #oscarsowhite Hollywood in a last-minute Hail Mary upset moment.

3. Stop blaming Beatty and Dunaway for being old and clueless, that's not fair. It's ageist. It's been a while since they've been presenters, true, but like anybody else on the show they were trusting that they'd been given the proper envelope. It was an unprecedented situation where no one was really expecting, or prepared for, an error like this.

4. Kudos to the La La Land producer who kept his head when everyone else was losing theirs and did the right thing by announcing the real winner.

5. We're all entitled to our opinions about whether we personally like a film. But you can't use whether you approve of, or relate to, a film's premise or stars to judge the outcome of industry awards. Any critique should be made on the level of how a narrative is professionally developed, executed, and presented on film. I've heard too many people complain that Moonlight glorifies African American dysfunction and therefore doesn't deserve recognition. I've heard others say that Manchester By The Sea is too depressing with a sexual predator as star and shouldn't even be in the running. Still more say that La La Land is cliched, can't compare to classic musicals, posits a white person as a savior of a black art form, and that they were bored by it. I myself was underwhelmed by Hell Or High Water, the script of which I found hella derivative. OK -- all legitimate complaints. But none of these observations addresses the degree of artistic vision, skill, organization, effort and craft that went into making these films -- which is still considerable.

5. The Best Picture Academy Award recognizes ALL of the cinematic arts that go into the film: Screenplay, directing, editing, acting, art direction, cinematography, etc. -- not just the story. La La Land was indeed an incredible feat of filmmaking, with its choreography, live tracking shots, gorgeous sets and sprightly original music. This is why that picture won best song, best score, best cinematography, best production design and best director (the person who wrangled all of those elements and executed the overall vision). However, La La Land's cliched and occasionally tone-deaf script was not on the same level as Moonlight, which was a truly unique and original examination of characters we rarely see, with indelible performances, gorgeous cinematography and pacing, and a beautiful score. Which is why Moonlight won best adapted script as well as the overall best picture prize.

6. Denzel Washington will be OK. Though he deserved to win best actor I didn't expect him to. He has earned two Oscars in his career. (Meryl Streep, for all her nominations, has only one more Oscar than he does.) The issue with Denzel is actually a rare problem for a performer to have -- a consistent level of excellence. He's too good, all day, every day, in roles that are well within his wheelhouse: Complex, but presented with integrity even when he's a bad guy. He was masterful as Troy Maxson in Fences -- but he is ALWAYS masterful. He set a high bar early and rarely deviates from it. His first Oscar for Glory awarded that excellence, that power he has to make us feel a character, back in 1990 when he'd finally come to mass attention -- just as Viola Davis finally earned recognition this year after reaching mass consciousness a few years ago for Doubt. Denzel's second Oscar came for portraying a devious and morally corrupt undercover detective [in Training Day]-- because it was OUTSIDE the realm of what we came to expect from him and gave us another level. For Denzel to win a third Oscar he will have to surprise the crap out of us: Play a transgender character, play a woman, dance and/or sing, play a towering historical figure, romance Meryl Streep, play a physically or mentally challenged character, drop 50 pounds, gain 100 pounds, spend an entire film buck naked fighting the elements. You know what I mean -- something he hasn't yet done. Or he'll earn it as a director or producer of a project.

7. Manchester By The Sea is a story that reminds working class Americans of their resilience and humanity. Casey Affleck was the screen embodiment of those emotions, further, it was just his time in the Academy Award sunshine. He's been quietly building his screen resume the last few years, and truth be told, he's a way more nuanced and skilled actor than his brother Ben. That he may be a creep and a cad is another issue.

8. Which brings me to Nate Parker. I am sad that Birth Of A Nation was completely wiped from Oscar consciousness because of the rape charge that he was acquitted of. There are some serious double standards going on here, no doubt, which isn't to diminish the seriousness of those charges. The film was a great achievement for its execution and overall premise. But Parker did not handle the scandal with any grace or taste, and he hasn't been in Hollywood long enough to have an entrenched power base on his side (the way Affleck The Younger does). Parker will be back.

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Viola Davis credit: Jim Ruymen/UPI

Searing, Stunning, Unforgettable "Fences"

Fences*
directed by Denzel Washington
starring Denzel Washington, Viola Davis

At the close of Denzel Washington’s powerful and brilliant film adaptation of August Wilson’s play Fences, my sister and I sat stunned in our reclining theater seats, letting the weight of it wash over us.

You must see it.

Fences is a masterful piece of theater, a portrait of an African American family in the 1950s, at the center of which is Troy Maxson, a force of nature, a fabulist and charmer as played by actor and director Denzel Washington, whose smooth veneer masks a man struggling with pain, bitterness, limited education, intractable opinions, questionable choices, and fraught relationships with his wife and sons. There is no other word for Denzel’s performance other than … Astounding.

You must see it.

The film finds Troy working the back of a garbage truck and fighting for his right to become the first Negro truck driver in Pittsburgh – a role he ultimately wins despite being unable to read and lacking a driver’s license. Once a star ball player in the Negro Leagues, Troy’s playing days were well before major league baseball was ready to integrate, and Troy now has nothing but contempt for groundbreaker Jackie Robinson or for his teenage son’s opportunity to earn a college scholarship by playing football. He swills gin with his friend Bono and talks shit with the air of an authority, but he must constantly be reminded that times are changing around him.

You must see it.

So often stage plays that reach the big screen are “opened up,” so that the locations and other characters become more fully realized than they were on the page; thus the emphasis and impact of the play can be altered or shifted in ways the playwright didn’t originally envision or intend. Denzel as director is wise enough not to open up the play too much. He gives us a view of a working class black Pittsburgh neighborhood, but keeps true to the play’s key scenes firmly set in the Maxsons’ backyard and kitchen. The smartest move of all is that he lets the camera stay close and still upon its incredibly capable actors, whose performances are sterling. Mykelti Williamson never drifts into excess as Gabriel, the brain damaged WWI veteran and brother of Troy; the actors portraying his sons, particularly Russell Hornsby as Lyons, each have moments that show us the character’s entire lives of struggle and defeat in just a few scenes. But none are more affecting than acting powerhouse Viola Davis as Rose, a loyal wife who is shattered by her husband’s self-serving choices, or by Denzel himself as Troy.

You must see it.

The film is full of wonderfully melodic and metaphoric language and visual symbolism. We have Gabriel and his horn, the Fool who speaks Truth. We have Rose, a symbol of beauty and grace, to whom Grabriel -- not Troy -- brings a single bloom. There are personal sacrifices and images of crosses. There is the continual building of the titular fence, which Troy successfully erects between himself and others. Troy speaks of wrestling Death in an early scene; in another, he tells a story of being beaten by his father with the reins of a mule. Denzel’s delivery of this monologue is nothing short of miraculous, as he is seen envisioning the moment with a sense of reminiscent humor that we know was entirely absent from the event itself but that allows us to see its horror clearly as though we were there ourselves. Viola Davis’s portrayal of Rose, the woman who seems to be the quiet strength of the film, the eye to Troy’s hurricane, is compelling. In what has to be the climax of Fences, the “I have to tell you something” moment, Viola’s realness will tear at your soul.

I don’t know how to fully express the impact of Fences. By giving actors room to infuse ferocious life into their roles, and creating very simple sets, the import of all that is said and all that is not said falls down on us like a heavy blanket. We feel these people, we know them, we are astounded by them. Our hearts break for them.

You must see it.

It is the best drama I have seen in a long while.

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"Fences" is part of the late African American playwright August Wilson's cycle of ten plays about the same Pittsburgh neighborhood. The play won both a Pulitzer and the Tony Award as Best Play in 1987. Other plays in the cycle include "The Piano Lesson," "King Hedley II," "The Gem of The Ocean," "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom," and "Radio Golf."

Photo credit: David Lee - © MMXVI Paramount Pictures Corporation.

Bless Its Heart: A Few Thoughts On 'La La Land'

La La Land (2016)
directed by Damien Chazelle
starring Emma Stone, Ryan Gosling
original music by Justin Hurwitz

Let's face the music and dance.

1. I was born and raised and spent years working in New York. Friends and family couldn’t envision this Big Apple, Bronx-bred chick out on The Coast with the Holly Would-ers when I made the move in 1994. “So you’re moving out to La La Land, huh?” La La Land was where the loopy, thirsty and deluded went, where wacky trends in health and beauty were taken seriously, where people sold their souls to make it in the entertainment business, whether they had the skills or not. La La Land was where I was certainly going to lose whatever good sense I may have had.

2. But who says that good sense and dreams are polar opposites? I was born and bred in a city that reveres its musical theater traditions. Where making it big on a stage or a club was nearly the only legitimate path to widespread success for many an African American performer through the 19th and 20th centuries. Where I was fed a steady diet of musical fantasies.

3. Some of us need La La Land. Some of us need our dreams in order to move forward. And some of us live in a La La Land of our own design, whether we have a California address or not. Some of us don’t know when to let go of the “La La.”


4. I love classic movie musicals. I’m talking Cabin In The Sky, An American In Paris, Carousel, Seven Brides For Seven Brothers, Oklahoma!, Mary Poppins, Funny Face, 42nd Street, Funny Girl, Sweet Charity, Gigi, Hello Dolly!, and the like -- big singing and dancing spectacles with old school Hollywood stars like Howard Keel, Judy Garland, Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, Eleanor Powell, Leslie Caron, Ethel Waters, Danny Kaye, Lena Horne, Ann Miller, the Nicholas Brothers, Frank Sinatra, and many others. These performers could sing as well as dance, and they worked with some of the most innovative and demanding of choreographers. To me, That's Entertainment.

La La Land, the movie ...

La La Land is a new age "musical" that utilizes the tropes of those classic Hollywood productions to tell its story, with varying degrees of success.

We have characters – Gosling’s jazz-loving piano player Sebastian and Stone’s budding actress and erstwhile barista Mia – pass through the meet-cute stage, and progress to tandem song and dance to reveal their growing attraction. Their romantic commitment lifts them from the ground into a magical dance among the stars, to a beautiful envisioning of a what-could-have-been-love montage. Along the way, viewers are treated to a few travelogue moments of classic Los Angeles (though not enough for my taste); The Warner Bros. lot in Burbank, the Griffith Observatory, downtown LA, Santa Monica, and the Hollywood Hills.

However, to pull off a truly great musical, you need two leads in whose performance talents you’re already invested. Stars Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone are highly appealing and capable actors. Gosling has earned his chops through such films as Drive, The Place Beyond The Pines, Blue Valentine, and Lars And The Real Girl, among other films. After a few smart-girl roles Stone impressed me most with her range as the bratty daughter in Birdman. However (and despite Goslings Mouseketeer background) these two have minimal song-and-dance credentials. And though they give it the Old College Try, La La Land left me underwhelmed by the musical's musical numbers.

Despite a wonderful musical score and sprightly songs (I am going to get my hands on the soundtrack posthaste because I love "City of Stars"), La La Land becomes an average musical because of the average talents of Gosling and Stone. While some viewers may feel that the charm of the film springs from their very average-ness, I found myself consistently bored and annoyed that such fantastic tunes and dance setpiece opportunities were squandered on the scratchy, whispery, karaoke vocals and Dance 101 high school hoofing of the leads. This pair would have been voted off of Dancing With The Stars in the early rounds. The film’s numbers don’t even approach the level of those teen Disney projects that were so popular a decade ago, High School Musical and the like.

But here’s the catch -- the thing has heart. Though it’s not a great musical, La La Land still manages to reel you in with its storytelling. An effective allegory about the struggle to set up a career in Hollywood, the trade-offs that one makes to stay afloat, and the effort to maintain a successful relationship, La La Land embodies a classic Hollywood story, one that endures because the struggle never gets easier. It’s a new age A Star Is Born, except no one succumbs to drink. It’s a wistful, honest, and ultimately heartrending story. Dreams come with a price tag, and sacrifices are part of the journey. And sometimes a great love is not forever.

Here is where the acting talents of Gosling and particularly Stone are most effective in conveying the emotional weight of what is mostly a weightless story. Extra credits given to Gosling, who actually appears to playing those keyboard riffs, even as he loses credits for white-splaining jazz to his beloved in the early part of their romance. And in her first scene auditioning for an acting role, Stone totally drew me in with her acting chops.

Furthermore, La La Land is beautiful to look at. It is sun-drenched and bright, and even in darkened settings such as the club where Gosling’s character Sebastian tickles the ivories, the sets and lighting are dreamlike, evocative, enthralling. The film is shot in CinemaScope, so its wide screen captures a broad swath of details. From the opening scenes, where the camera swoops between parked cars to capture the carefully choreographed singing, dancing, flipping, and skateboarding of motorists leaving their vehicles on a traffic-locked freeway overpass and then whirls through the rooms of Mia’s apartment to capture her roommates as they ready for a Hollywood party – we know that the film is an extraordinary feat of movie-making.

The movie seems destined to be translated into a Broadway musical in the coming years, and perhaps then the mediocre singing and dancing will be improved tenfold. There are so many screen-to-stage productions these days that it seems entirely likely.

As a classic movie musical,La La Land is a flop by my standards. There has been an ongoing trend of the last few years of having non-singing actors sing on screen, but I'm not with it -- particularly as there are so many musically talented performers available.

But as a film fantasy inspired by old Hollywood about new Hollywood, La La Land will touch you.