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!