From the Chicago Reader (January 26, 2001). — J.R.
The Pledge
***
Directed by Sean Penn
Written by Jerzy Kromolowski and Mary Olson-Kromolowski
With Jack Nicholson, Patricia Clarkson, Benicio Del Toro, Dale Dickey, Aaron Eckhart, Helen Mirren, Tom Noonan, Robin Wright Penn, Vanessa Redgrave, Mickey Rourke, and Sam Shepard.
Blooper Bunny
***
Directed by Greg Ford and Terry Lennon
Written by Ronnie Scheib, Ford, and Lennon
With Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Elmer Fudd, and Yosemite Sam.
The Wedding Planner
**
Directed by Adam Shankman
Written by Pamela Falk and Michael Ellis
With Jennifer Lopez, Matthew McConaughey, Bridgette Wilson- Sampras, Justin Chambers, and Judy Greer.
Shadow of the Vampire
*
Directed by E. Elias Merhige
Written by Steven Katz
With Willem Dafoe, John Malkovich, Catherine McCormack, Eddie Izzard, Cary Elwes, and Udo Kier.
I can’t say that The Pledge, The Wedding Planner, Blooper Bunny, and Shadow of the Vampire have much in common, apart from the fact that they’re showing in Chicago this week. Yet all four do, to different degrees, feed off other movies. Frankly, that’s what I like most about The Wedding Planner — a romantic comedy starring Jennifer Lopez and Matthew McConaughey that aspires to and achieves the goofiness of a studio musical of the early 50s. Read more
My latest column for Caimán Cuadernos de Cine, submitted in early February 2024:
A short Paris holiday — mostly devoted to seeing old friends, but also including a Zoom lecture on Billy Wilder’s Ace in the Hole for students in Atlanta. It’s a temporary escape from the viper’s nest of Trumpland, and I’m sufficiently solipsistic as an American to think I’m far enough away from the bad vibes of Billy Wilder to experience them differently, as an egotistical form of self-hatred.
Kirk Douglas, a disgruntled counterpart to the nasty reporters of The Front Page (a later Wilder project, reflecting his own past as a Viennese scandal-monger), is stuck in a dull position at a New Mexico newspaper until he gains exclusive access to a man trapped in a remote desert cave. Eventually he causes the man’s death by delaying his rescue, meanwhile trumping (pun intended) his big-city competitors and attracting many credulous, sensation-hungry tourists. Simultaneously celebrating and castigating this antihero’s ruthlessness is the quintessential Wilder “touch”.
Douglas’s self-hatred recalls William Holden’s failing screenwriter who becomes a gigolo (related to another seedy part of Wilder’s European background) in Sunset Boulevard, whose success made Ace in the Hole possible. Each antihero is killed after his self-hatred becomes most evident, literally facing us as a fallen corpse at the film’s end,
A man believing Trump was sent to Earth by Jesus was recently asked if he minded being called a disciple. Read more
