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\n\t\t\tPosted by\t\t\tJohn Scalzi<\/a>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\u00a0\u00a0
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First off, look at that dork. What\u2019s going on with his hair? Why is he tugging on his ear? Did he really think round glasses were right for his face? Someone needs to go back to 1991 and give that young man a fashion intervention. This is a disaster.<\/p>\n
Second, today is the 35th anniversary of my first movie reviews going on up in the Fresno Bee, the newspaper that hired me straight out of college to be their film critic. Why did they do that? Well, I would like to say that it was because my exceptional talent simply could not be denied, and maybe that was part of it, but the other part of it was, being right out of college and it being the middle of a recession, they could hire me for really really cheap. <\/p>\n
That was fine by me! Unlike so many other of my compatriots in the Class of \u201991, I had a job! And it was watching movies, which I was going to do anyway! Honestly, it was all good.<\/p>\n
To celebrate this milestone of my career, I though it might be fun to post the first two reviews I wrote for the Bee. The first is for Deceived, a Goldie Hawn thriller that no one remembers now, including, I suspect, Goldie Hawn. The second is for The Fisher King, the Terry Gilliam film which would go on to get five Oscar nominations, including one for star Robin Williams, and one win, for Mercedes Ruehl. Looking back, I think these reviews hold up fine, although if I were 22-year-old me\u2019s editor, I\u2019d tell him to go a little lighter on the spoiler-y elements in his reviews. Other than that, they do the job, and I got to keep doing mine. <\/p>\n
But don\u2019t take my word for it. Here they are. Let me know what you think, 35 years on. <\/p>\n
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By John Scalzi<\/p>\n
The Fresno Bee<\/p>\n
People sometimes say they don\u2019t really know their spouses, but that\u2019s more than a casual complaint for Adrienne Saunders (Goldie Hawn) in the lukewarm thriller \u201cDeceived,\u201d Hawn\u2019s first picture since last summer.<\/p>\n
Not that Adrienne thinks there\u2019s anything wrong with her husband, Jack, (John Heard), at first. They spot each other across a crowded restaurant, where Adrienne is being stood up (and probably not for the first time) by a blind date.<\/p>\n
The next day, Jack, who works for a New York art museum, wanders into Adrienne\u2019s business, an art-restoration company, and chemistry takes over.<\/p>\n
After a brief exhibition of the intellectual\u2019s mating ritual (Chinese food, a foot rub and all-night conversation in the participants\u2019 fields of expertise), we\u2019re transported six years into the future and into a home life that\u2019s so impossibly perfect we know something\u2019s going to go wrong.<\/p>\n
In Hollywood, the only reason to show a perfect family is to knock the foundation out from under it.<\/p>\n
This is accomplished when Jack, who may or may not have ties to an art-counterfeiting scheme, takes out the car one winter day, and it promptly slides over an embankment.<\/p>\n
Adrienne, who was beginning to suspect that her husband was up to more than he was letting on (he\u2019d been spotted in New York hotels when he supposedly was at Boston art auctions), gets an additional shock when she finds out from the Social Security office that Jack Saunders has been dead 15 years. Whoever she thought \u201cJack,\u201d her husband, was, he obviously wasn\u2019t.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s at this point that the movie shifts from a domestic drama to a mystery. Later, once the pieces fall together, it transmutes once more, into a \u201cFatal Attraction\u201d-type thriller. It\u2019s a neat concept, almost three pictures in one. A Neapolitan ice cream of a film.<\/p>\n
But \u201cDeceived\u201d doesn\u2019t work very well, largely because the script and the direction aren\u2019t up to the level of complexity they need to pull it off. In a genre like this, where plotting and direction are everything, it\u2019s hard to overcome that handicap.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s a shame, because both Hawn and Heard work hard with what they\u2019re given. Hawn in particular is better than she has been in any of her recent films. Perhaps this isn\u2019t saying much, when you consider that her last attempt at acting (\u201cBird on a Wire\u201d) consisted of squealing in fright, making O\u2019s with her mouth, and being peeved when another woman looked at Mel Gibson\u2019s buns.<\/p>\n
Heard keeps up his end of the movie as well, suave and oily in that terribly sincere manner that always fools everyone until it is too late. I worry about Heard, who seems to be a nice guy, but who always manages to get the jerk roles (he was the obnoxious climber in \u201cBig,\u201d for example). Someone ought to give him a role where he could move around.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not this one. Screenwriters Mary Agnes Donoghue and Derek Saunders have little success making their characters believable. Adrienne and Jack\u2019s fawning stage goes on for the first 25 minutes of the movie, much too long. After the third scene depicting how happy the two are together, I wanted Jack dead, now, because I knew the movie would not limp out of first gear until that man croaked. <\/p>\n
Once he\u2019s out of the way, the rest of the script is a series of soft lobs to director Damian Harris, setting the plot devices in nice, obvious places so that Harris can spike them into the audience. Which he does with gay abandon, aided by a music score (by Thomas Newman) that screeches in suspense any time an actor makes a physical movement. <\/p>\n
Harris\u2019 lack of finesse works to the film\u2019s advantage in the final battle scene, when he can forget the jigsaw puzzle and simply scare the crowd. It succeeds: Hawn, Heard and their disassembled apartment building all work together to create a good, healthy screamfest. But it\u2019s predictable, and it leaves one whopper of a question (\u201cWhere is Goldie standing?\u201d) that could have been solved with better lighting, but it\u2019s not such a bad payoff.<\/p>\n
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By John Scalzi<\/p>\n
The Fresno Bee<\/p>\n
Director Terry Gilliam\u2019s movies have always been like over-stuffed toy boxes. There are so many wonderful things to look at that the consideration of their purpose is secondary.<\/p>\n
\u201cTime Bandits,\u201d \u201cBrazil\u201d and \u201cThe Adventures of Baron Munchausen\u201d were all visually ravishing confections, wildly inventive yet strangely short on plot details. So the frustration factor with a Gilliam film is high: You\u2019d gladly give a little on the scenic details if only the story would gain in the trade.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Fisher King,\u201d Gilliam\u2019s splendid new effort, achieves that balance, muting the directors\u2019 baroque visual edge and using that reclaimed, calm space to allow its characters depth. The result is synergistic: It is Gilliam\u2019s best film.<\/p>\n
The story (written by first-timer Richard LaGravenese) is the quest for the Holy Grail. This is an old stomping ground for Gilliam, who co-directed \u201cMonty Python and the Holy Grail.\u201d This time, the Grail resides in New York City, and the heroes are decidedly not of the Round Table.<\/p>\n
Jack (Jeff Bridges), a shock-radio deejay, who isn\u2019t even vaguely chivalric. He\u2019s obnoxious, self-centered and only begins to interact with humanity when his climate-controlled world is shattered by a listener who takes his advice and wipes out fern-covered eatery loaded with yuppies. Jack drops out and tunes out, living on the charity of Anne (Mercedes Ruehl), the tough owner of a video store.<\/p>\n
One night Jack is nearly set on fire by a couple of hoods and is rescued by Parry (Robin Williams), an amazingly literate bum whose cherubic visions tell him to seek the Grail. His only problem is that he is pursued by the Red Knight, who only he can see (and which, in Gilliam\u2019s world, looks like a punk Tin Man on a flaming red horse).<\/p>\n
Both men see the other as the solution to their problems: Parry needs Jack to help him get the Grail, and Jack, who learns that Parry was in the fern bar when the shooting began, needs Parry to help him get back his soul. Jack decides to do this by helping Parry win the heart of Lydia (Amanda Plummer), a graceless, gawky wallflower that Parry adores from a distance. This leads to the best restaurant scene since \u201cWhen Harry Met Sally,\u201d a Chinese dinner that\u2019s half meal, half hockey game. After this, Jack thinks he\u2019s off the hook, but there\u2019s still the Grail.<\/p>\n
Particularly notable about this script is its believability. It is not fantasy for fantasy\u2019s sake. Each dip into that world has root and branch in this more physical world. Every movement in one sphere has an effect on the other. LaGravenese\u2019s care in meshing these two worlds give the movie a narrative flow; there\u2019s nary a bump when the transitions are made.<\/p>\n
The acting also is fine. Jeff Bridges, never the most demonstrative actor, lets his remove work for him as his character tries to wrest his gaze from inside and refocus it out into the world. Merecedes Ruehl and Amanda Plummer complement the men they\u2019re paired with, Ruehl\u2019s chin-leading emotionality cutting Bridges\u2019 distance and Plummer\u2019s clumsy suspicion blending with William\u2019s earnest romanticism.<\/p>\n
Not surprisingly, it is Williams who owns the film. There\u2019s little doubt that the man who began as Mork from Ork is one of our better actors. Anyone who can strip himself naked in Central Park, rub his tush on the grass and deliver an affecting monologue deserves credit. This performance, an outrageous romp with moments of crushing subtlety, adds another brick in his foundation.<\/p>\n
Best of all was Gilliam\u2019s direction, which has unquestionably matured. Even reined in, Gilliam is a formidable talent. He may be one of the few directors who would conceive of turning Grand Central Station into a ballroom, as he does in this film. He is one of the still fewer who could actually pull it off, creating one of the most striking scenes in recent film.<\/p>\n
But \u201cThe Fisher King\u201d does not sacrifice its story for the visuals. It keeps them both intact.<\/p>\n
It is a toy box with a purpose.<\/p>\n
\u2014 JS<\/p>\n