MatM '15-'16: #38 & #37

#38 The Connection

Jean Dujardin, he of the large chin and unwavering charm, stars as Pierre Michel (in all of the possible French names in the lexicon of French names, the most creative they could come up with was Pierre Michel?) in a companion piece to 1971's The French Connection. The purpose: to show the crusade against heroin that Popeye Doyle cinematically took on 45 years ago, only from the French side, i.e., in the country of France.

No, there was no rehashing of the monumental car chase from the original, nor was there any Gene Hackman. Instead, Pierre Michel's taking down of "La French" is slow, methodical and full of various bureaucratic obstacles. There is some well-orchestrated action and a couple of nice car/motorcycle chases through some thin European style roads and alleyways, but doesn't hit the same fever pitch as the original. Perhaps the biggest positive about The Connection is that looks great, like a true seventies noir. The French Riviera's bright beaches are a beautiful backdrop, a sunny canvas with seediness under the surface, if you look close enough.

#37 Trumbo

I read a pretty fascinating article in Entertainment Weekly about casting and how movies and television shows would have been drastically different had x actor/actress starred rather than y actor/actress. Al Pacino was at one point considered for Han Solo, Meg Ryan (!) for Pretty Woman, and, as many people know, Will Smith was offered Neo before Keanu Reeves was. Bryan Cranston, known only at that point as "dad from Malcolm in the Middle", was actually the third choice for Walter White, behind Matthew Broderick and John Cusack. Can you imagine? Ferris Bueller cooking up that blue? Though Broderick's can go dark (Election), I don't know...it's hard to imagine anyone else doing this:

Since Cranston is, by all reports, a super good guy off-camera, he is easy to root for, and so it's been nice to see him vaulted to the upper echelon. He's really-good-not-quite-great as Dalton Trumbo, but it's not enough to save the film.

It's 1947, right when Russian-American relations are starting to reach a boiling point, and Dalton Trumbo is the most sought-after writer in Hollywood. He is also a Communist sympathizer, outed with others by gossip columnist Hedda Hopper (Helen Mirren). This is not exactly great timing, considering the heaps of money about to be offered to him by MGM, who begin backpedaling. Then the Hollywood Ten are rounded up one by one, arrested, and put on trial. Amidst the grueling legal battle, Trumbo continues to write, at this point inking his most famous work Roman Holiday. Only he can't take credit for it-putting his buddy Ian McClellan Hunter (Alan Turdyk of Firefly fame) on the front page instead in exchange for a 30% payout. It sells, but there are plenty of further complications ahead, least of which winning an Oscar for a movie he couldn't claim. (He would win again with 1957's The Brave One, this time writing under pseudonym Robert Rich.)

There is a solid supporting cast to back Cranston, including Louis C.K. as the sardonic Arlen Hird (another one of the ten), Michael Stuhlbarg as Edward G. Robinson, the star that raises money for their defense fund and Diane Lane as his wife. None, however, match the gonzo performance from John Goodman as B-studio head Frank King. Despite this talented bunch, the movie never quite hits its stride and seems to land somewhere between entertaining throwback to the studio age and self-aggrandizing statement on freedom of speech.

It's crazy to think things like this happened in our country barely more than half a century ago.