Cynical Cinema

I have known many girls, in high school and beyond, who were almost exactly like Ellen Page in Juno.  And I have been head-over-heels for them all.  Diablo Cody is the screenwriter, and this is her first screenplay, and it is incredibly bang-on.  At one point Juno acknowledges and actually calls attention to the fact that the jocks want to sleep with her and girls like her.  Girls who are attractive but seemingly put no effort into being so, who are blessed with incredibly dry sardonic wit, and who use their above-average intelligence to do what they feel like doing rather than striving for high marks.  This character is not new in movies, and it is not new in life.  This type of movie is in no way groundbreaking.  But it is classic.  Classics are created when a movie becomes something you’ve never seen before, or like this one, becomes the absolute best example of a particular genre.  Casablanca was not terrifically ground-breaking, remember.  It was just the absolute best, head and shoulders above the other movies like it.

 And so too is Juno, a cut far above many other similar movies - Thumbsucker, Me and You And Everyone We Know, Eagle vs. Shark, Our Very Own, Ghost World.  (The last time I was into a character this much was Scarlett Johanssen in Ghost World.)  The best thing about Juno is that it is hilarious.  There are genuine belly laughs to be found in the script and the actors are perfectly cast.  Ellen Page is bang-on perfect as a young high schooler who does her own thing, lives her own life by her own rules, and has an incredibly hilarious dry wit.  But her obvious intelligence can’t answer everything for her when she unexpectedly gets pregnant.  Michael Cera (Superbad) is hilariously nervous and shy as Bleeker, the father of Juno’s baby.  He is incredibly nervous around her, which makes sense.  She is so dry, and so (apparently) apathetic, that he lives in fear of revealing anything close to his true feelings to her, for fear of being mocked, or worse, ignored.  Also terrific are Alison Janney and J.K. Simmons as Juno’s father and step-mother, Olivia Thirlby as her best friend, and especially Jennifer Garner and Jason Bateman as a young couple looking to adopt Juno’s unborn child.

This movie has a tremendous heart, every single minute of screen time rings absolutely true, and it is hilarious.  Consistently, beginning-to-end, belly-laugh hilarious.  I think the last time I laughed this hard this often in a movie was at Superbad, and although that one was certainly great, it had nowhere near the heart and the pacing and the performances that are on display in Juno.  This is an absolutely magnificent film, and it was deservedly the breakout for Ellen Page, Michael Cera, Diablo Cody and director Jason Reitman.  This is one of the best movies on DVD shelves right now.

The greatest overactor of all time, Charlton Heston, has finally had that rifle pried out of his cold, dead hands. I loved Charlton Heston, his flagrant over-acting and his overly pompous persona shone through in even his most innocuous movie roles (with the exception of Bowling For Columbine, where he showed that playing himself he was actually a fairly regular human being. It was nice to see.) So here is my personal Top Ten list (movie people love Top Whatever Lists) of the greatest Heston movies:

#10: El Cid. Once again, Heston is over-the-top as the Spanish hero El Cid. Jesus-like in his goodness, Heston rallies feuding tribes to a common cause and saves the empire. Imagine Lawrence of Arabia with Heston instead of Peter O’Toole, and you have El Cid. Which is one reason that Heston will be remembered as a great actor, but not as a screen legend alongside the Brandos and the Oliviers and the Nicholsons. His presence would have made Lawrence of Arabia into a pretty good movie, instead of an all-time classic. Although El Cid is meant to be a larger than life character, Heston still seems to make him even bigger than that, and in no way touches upon the inner turmoil that must have driven the real man. Also, Sophia Loren shows up and she is smoking hot. A solid reason to watch this epic.

#9: The Agony and the Ecstasy. Heston, yet again, fails to find anything close to an emotional centre while playing Michelangelo, yet this sweeping epic is still strangely moving. At the core of the story is the battle waged between Michelangelo and the Pope (played wonderfully here by Rex Harrison). This movie drips with history - quite literally, as watercolours drip into Heston’s eyes while he paints the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. And visually, it is one of the most impressive films of the era. It is a little too long, and the character development should be greater in a film of such length…or, there should BE some character development, but the sets and the costumes and the whole production design make up for it. Great historical drama.

#8: The Ten Commandments. Perhaps it’s the fact that I have seen it so very many times, every single Easter and occasionally in between, that prevents me from ranking this one higher. It is certainly a magnificent achievement by Cecil B. DeMille - some of the scenes are legendary, and I love the parting of the Red Sea. But it’s speeches like “oh Moses, Moses, you stubborn, adorable, splendid fool” that keep me cringing. And again, Moses needs no character development - he’s Moses. You know Moses, right? Good. Let’s proceed. I love Edward G. Robinson in this movie too, but somehow I keep coming back to DeMille. This is actually a remake of his own, earlier movie version of The Ten Commandments, and while it’s bigger, and more expensive, and more technologically advanced than the early one, it’s not necessarily better. Still a classic though.

#7: True Lies. OK, not a Heston movie as such. But he’s in there, playing Spencer Trilby, and I just want to stick True Lies in here because I think it’s a movie that doesn’t get the respect it deserves. Anything involving Schwarzennegger will invariably be cut down at least a peg by most critics, simply because he is who he is. I mean, he did Commando. And Kindergarten Cop. However, I think in this movie he shows that he is the logical, (albeit Austrian and more muscular) follower of Heston’s. He does not emote well, he has little chance of creating a truly three-dimensional character, and yet he is always, whenever he is on the screen, larger than life. And True Lies remains a passed-over classic which deserves more recognition in the annals of action movies.

#6: Soylent Green. Spoiler alert - Soylent Green is people, and Heston is having none of it! One of his roles which required a little more acting and a little less speechifying, this is a very satisfying, bizarre-looking futuristic film. Part of a “trilogy” of future-sci-fi films Heston did that included The Omega Man (recently remade with Will Smith in I Am Legend) and of course, Planet of the Apes. The dark tone of the film and the great set design make this one well worth checking out.

#5: Planet Of The Apes. Some of the most hilarious over-acting of all time. “Get your stinking paws off me, you damn dirty ape!” This one is an all-time Great Film, if only because of that final shot of the Statue of Liberty, which is a great early example of revelatory endings in movies. The direction is superb, and the clues that pile up throughout the movie are deftly strung together as the mystery unfolds, leaving Heston to deliver the ultimate over-acting climax in movie history. “You maniacs!”

#4: Will Penny. A tragically overlooked Western classic, starring Heston in one of his finest acting roles. He is an aging and poor cowboy who seets out with Lee Majors and Anthony Zerbe to find a job, but the three soon run afoul of a crazy bible-thumping outlaw and his even-crazier sons. Donald Pleasance is terrific as the bad guy, and Joan Hackett is great with Heston as the love interest. One of the most under-rated movies out there, and one of Heston’s best performances.

#3: The Omega Man. Heston is the last man alive in a post-apocalyptic world. Based on the novel I Am Legend by Richard Matheson, and earlier filmed starring Vincent Price as “The Last Man on Earth”. This is the best of the Future sci-fi trilogy that also included Planet of the Apes and Soylent Green. Anthony Zerbe co-stars in this one as well, as the leader of the group of bloodthirsty half-human-half vampire weirdos who go after Heston. Rosalind Cash is sultry and magnificent as a woman who shows Heston that he may well NOT be the Last Man Alive.

#2: Ben-Hur. Heston’s only Oscar came for his performance in this epic, magnificent movie. This was the third screen version of the very-biblical novel by Lew Wallace, and it was easily the best. Stephen Boyd is terrific as Messala, Judah Ben-Hur’s boyhood friend and later nemesis. And Heston’s over-th-top, speechifying larger-than life acting has never been so a-propos as it is here. The chariot race is worth the price of the DVD alone - one of the greatest set pieces in motion picture history.

#1: Touch Of Evil. Not only Heston’s best acting job ever, this is also his greatest movie. Not only that, it is one of Orson Welles’ greatest movies, and that is saying a lot. Welles is both the director and a star in the film, playing a corrupt, obese, slovenly police chief in a Mexican border town. Heston is a Mexican policeman on his honeymoon who, along with his new bride (the fantastic Janet Leigh) run afoul of Welles’ Chief Hank Quinlan. Heston’s character, Mike Vargas, believes that Chief Quinlan has planted evidence to ensure a perfect conviction record in the past, and he believes that the current suspect in a bomb explosion case is being railroaded by Quinlan. A dark, brilliant, perfectly done film noir, this is a higly overlooked and truly magnificent movie that deserves a place in any list of the greatest film noir movies ever made.