My Last Three Movies

Philomena (2013)
Martin Sixsmith (Steve Coogan) was a disgraced adviser for the British government trying to determine what he should do next. At a party, he was approached by a woman suggesting he write about her mother, an elderly Catholic who had been forced to give up her son for adoption while living in a convent. Though initially reluctant to do a “human interest” piece, he eventually agrees to meet the woman, Philomena Lee (Judi Dench). Her story — uncovered in fits and starts despite opposition at nearly every turn — proves to be shocking, tragic and almost unbelievable. Of course, most of it is true.

This was a lovely surprise. It was on our radar mainly because it had been nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards, and Judi Dench had been nominated for Best Actress. Honestly, who can resist a great Judi Dench movie? She’s just amazing.

Here, she largely disappears into the role of Philomena, an old, slightly doddering woman who remains devout despite the failings of the Church she believes in so strongly. It’s impressive to see her so ordinary and simple, pulling out only hints of her natural gravitas when she needs to underscore a dramatic beat. It’s unlike almost any other role I’ve ever seen her in.

The movie is directed briskly by Stephen Frears, who guided another British treasure to a Best Actress Oscar (Helen Mirren for The Queen). The more we learn about Philomena’s past, the more sympathy we feel for her and the deeper our desire to know what happened to her son. The answers lie in Washington, DC, and they’re just as surprising. How the film handles each revelation, allowing just enough time for the shock to settle in before moving quickly through the fallout, is kind of a marvel of pacing. This is a film that knows what it’s about, and doesn’t waste time getting there.

Coogan is great as Sixsmith, the prickly journalist who bonds with Philomena through the search but never quite stops being himself. A final confrontation underscores the wide gulf between the reporter and his subject, and while you understand Sixsmith’s reaction (and probably share it), Philomena’s gives us much-needed grace and closure.

If you’re waiting for more episodes of Downton Abbey or Doctor Who, this is going to be your jam.
Tequila Sunrise (1988)
Robert Towne wrote and directed this California crime film, which is pretty confusing. On one hand, he wrote the classic film Chinatown and here he is returning to the genre that made him. But on the other, maybe Roman Polanski deserves all the credit and visibility he gets for Chinatown; while that film’s many, many twists are managed quite nicely, this one feels inert — like we’re standing in one place, spinning in circles, and calling it entertainment.

Mel Gibson, Kurt Russell, Michelle Pfeiffer, JT Walsh and Raul Julia all star in this movie but it’s hard to care about that. Gibson is a former drug dealer who Russell’s detective believes is selling again. They’re at each other’s throats for a good bit of the movie, but it’s hard to care about that either. The dialogue sinks pretty much every exchange, aiming for crackling and witty and landing far short.

After an hour or so, when we see the seventeenth slow-burn conversation between two of the characters, I realized that I had no idea what was going on, why the characters knew what they did or why they were saying what they were saying to each other. Ryan and I turned it off without finishing it, which almost never happens. Life’s too short and there are too many great (or at least more interesting) movies to watch.

I can’t say I recommend this one, but if you want to see an early Mel Gibson movie where he hasn’t quite gotten the hang of an American accent or Kurt Russell looking like he’s auditioning for the part of Patrick Bateman, this is your movie.
Last Action Hero (1993)
The real star of this movie is Frank McRae as Lt. Dekker, the stereotypical shouting black police chief, but Schwartzenegger actually does pretty great work here as well. This is one of those movies that got buried by bad timing and kind of unfair press; it opened a week after Jurassic Park and held up poorly against Sleepless in Seattle later. By the end of the summer, everyone called it a bomb and to this day there’s not a lot of fondness the way there is for other overlooked classics like, say, UHF.

But the movie is a really solid concept held back just a bit by shaking execution. To be fair, it’s a bit of a high-wire act that had never been done before — Last Action Hero tries to straddle the line between a parody of action movies and an homage to them, while also being a parable about the value and nature of storytelling. It swings for the fences, and that earns it my respect, and it mostly succeeds. Everyone gives it their all, and it’s really enjoyable if not quite as emotionally effective as it tries to be.

Teenage movie-buff Danny Madigan finds himself transported into the world of his favorite action hero, Jack Slater, through a magic ticket handed down to him by the elderly projectionist of an old movie theatre that’s about to be torn down. His presence in the film shades the live-action cartoon enough that the stakes are changed, especially when the sub-boss Benedict (Charles Dance!) slips through to the real world and realizes that the rules of the cinema don’t apply. Benedict is a great villain — smart, amoral, calculating, and he makes a nice foil for Schwartenegger’s meathead protagonist, Jack Slater.

Not everything works here — the big scene introducing the magic ticket is pretty corny, and not every self-aware joke lands quite right — but Last Action Hero gets more right then it gets wrong. The action is at once silly and engaging, and the comic timing actually works well slipped in amongst the thrill beats. Schwartenegger is game for self-parody, and he’s a lot funnier than he’s given credit for.

It’s still a minor film in his filmography, but it’s good enough for me to say it’s overlooked. Then again, I’ve been pleasantly surprised by a lot of Schwartenegger’s panned films; I thought Jingle All The Way is a legitimately-good Christmas movie, and Kindergarten Cop is not great, but fun. The same could be said for Last Action Hero, but I hold it up a little higher because of all it tries to do. It’s a mild success that could have been an unmitigated disaster, and that deserves at least a little love.

If you want to see Schwartenegger poking fun at his oiled-up machismo or the role that probably got Dance the part of Tywin Lannister, I’d recommend this one. It’s a great one to pop in on a Friday night where you just need to decompress.