Film Pairings — The Young, The Pretty And The Mysterious

You’ve met the young, haven’t you?  If you haven’t this double feature will go a long way to making introductions.

Wicker Park — Though not exactly a crime film, it is a mystery.  Adapted from the French original, L’Appartement. We follow Josh Hartnett as he bounces around from his wife-to-be, his former lover and an interloper.  Flashbacks are dizzying as we are theoretically given all the pieces we need to figure out what’s going on.  It’s fascinating and frustrating, if not altogether fulfilling to watch. In the end it is a somewhat clever exercise.  Hartnett is good, sexy and vulnerable. Rose Byrne is sexy and loony and Diane Kruger is lovely and cool, just short of cold.  Paul McGuigan directed this 2004 film with critics not necessarily fully on board. I suspect those watching at home will find it entertaining enough, having not spent the going rate for in-theater viewing. Wicker Park is officially set in Chicago, where there is a Wicker Park.  But you will be forgiven if you recognize a glimpse or two of Montreal.

Jack Ryan, Shadow Patriot — Also sporting young and pretty main characters, this 2014 release was a pleasant surprise.  Not a big fan of movies based on Tom Clancy novels despite the usually excellent plotting. However, this one had a touch of warmth as well as all the hallmarks of a thriller.  It is a solid and under rated film starring Chris Pine and Keira Knightly. It also has strong supporting performances by Kevin Costner and particularly Kenneth Branagh, who also directed. Given the current visibility given to Russia’s increasing involvement in U.S. and world affairs, including Vladimir Putin’s keen interest in covert and overt aggression, the film is also timely.  Ryan is embroiled in a Soviet plot to destroy the U.S. economy through stock market manipulation and terrorism.

Tonight’s double feature is a perfect compromise for those couples whose preferences are split between romance and action thrillers. I think the drink to accompany the entertainment should be wine.  A sweet white for the first and a hearty red for the second.  (I’d also advise watching Wicker park first, and not just because of the wine selection.) For the non-imbibers, try fruit-infused sparkling water.

Film Pairing – Mystery Writers Writing About Mystery Writers

There are two Sleuths, one with Lawrence Olivier as a sophisticated and revered best-selling thriller writer and Michael Caine as…as…well we don’t quite know as the games begin.  Hair stylist.  In the second Sleuth, it is Michael Caine who is the older and well-practiced game player. To keep things complicated (we’ll sort them out), Caine again plays a once-revered writer – this time a playwright in Deathtrap. I’m partial to movies portraying writers because writers tend to view themselves as sophisticated elegant, witty, and wise. Of course we are.

These are three films that seem, two intentionally, to be from the same seed:  Sleuth1972, directed by Joseph Mankiewicz and written by Anthony Shaffer; Deathtrap 1982, written by Ira Levin and directed by Sidney Lumet; and Sleuth 2007 directed by Kenneth Branagh and written by Harold Pinter. Unfortunately Olivier’ 1972 version isn’t available, so I’ll simply take the overwhelming number of positive reviews and its ample number of Academy Awards as a recommendation.  Unfortunately, the 1972 version is for another night.  For tonight there’s just the two:

Reeve & Caine In Deathtrap

Deathtrap (1982) — A long-running Broadway play, Deathtrap is an enjoyable way to spend an evening. It’s talky, of course and small, perfect for a TV screen. In addition to Michael Caine, we are reminded of Christopher Reeve’s good looks and acting skills.  Also, his daring.  One of the first on-screen male-to-male kisses (between Caine and Reeve] was the scandal of the times and purportedly cost the studio  $10 million in lost revenue. This is almost a “how-to” create a mystery plot with twists, surprises, misdirection and reverses, while also making fun of mystery conventions in general. At one point Reeve’s character claims to be writing a more “important’ novel than the thriller, which he claims is all plot with two-dimensional characters.

Sleuth (2007) — At one point in the more conventional Deathtrap, we see a deceitfully worshipful Christopher Reeve enter the aging playwright’s rustic cabin.  He says, “Wow, it’s beautiful. Michael Caine, the playwright, is obviously bored. He says he would prefer something more high-tech. In Sleuth we find another aging writer, this time Caine as a worldly mystery novelist, in his very high tech home about to engage in another game, this time with what first appears to be an innocent Jude Law.

Law & Caine In Sleuth

Much like the fencing match between Reeve and Caine, here we have a more abstract fencing match between Law and Caine.  And while Caine has no problem filling the frame in any movie he makes, Law chews the scenery in this one.   He does a masterful if not conspicuous job of changing character, from tough, boorishly masculine to flirtatiously bitchy. Law goes for broke and one can’t not watch him.  There are really only three characters here.  Caine, Law and the house, all of them showing off, keeping us riveted to a mystery that isn’t, a crime that never happens.  That, in itself, is fascinating.

In sleuth Caine drinks lots of Vodka and Law lots of Scotch, though a highly disturbed Law eventually guzzles Caine’s Vodka. Do what you will in the privacy of your own home.  As I’ve mentioned before a glass of ice with lemon and tonic can create a sense of behaving badly without behaving badly.

Film Pairing — The Dark Side Of Michael Caine Times 2

What do you do when people get in the way of your happiness and your ambition?  You kill them, of course.  Graham Marshall (Michael Caine) discovers this easy solution by accident when an angry, physically intimidating homeless man in a subway demands respect. Perhaps this hits too close.  Respect was what he wasn’t getting at home or at work.  The vagrant, an obvious failure in Marshall’s eyes, won’t go away.  A train and a little shove, not intended to kill — though it did — and poof, problem solved.  Now, on to other problems, larger, more irritating problems at home and at work.

In Shock to the System, based on the novel by Simon Brett, Caine plays an understated Don Draper, a man trying to advance in an advertising firm full of duplicitous, ass kissing executives.  The first death seems to light the way to the a dormant gene in Mr. Marshall’s constitution. He didn’t know he, who seemed to have a relatively mild, plodding personality, actually possessed the mind of a cold-blooded manipulator. He not only discovered this hidden talent, but now delighted in exercising it.  The cast — Elizabeth McGovern, Swoosie Kurtz and Will Patton — is solid, and the small, smart story is told well.  Is it possible to eliminate so many obstacles and not get caught?  We shall see.

Michael Caine makes so many films, he has to make some of them twice.   Sleuth is based on Anthony Shaffer’s award winning play. In the 1972 film, Caine played the younger of two characters in what turns out to be a deadly pissing match.  Lawrence Olivier played the older man, attempting to recover from the humiliation he felt at the theft his wife’s heart.  In 2007, the film was remade and updated, this time with Caine as the aging crime writer and Jude Law as the young actor or hairdresser (we’re not quite sure), who proves to be surprisingly adept at countering the sophisticated writer’s capricious, seemingly deadly moves.

What we have here is a stylish, mannered and fascinating two-person play in a stunning high-tech home, the third star of the film.  Harold Pinter wrote the screenplay and Kenneth Branagh directed.  Watching a cerebral and cunning Caine and a clever and outrageous Law going at each other is as good as it gets, a genuine championship bout. 

A Shock to the System is a fine undercard to Sleuth, which is clearly the main event.

Scotch would work as an accompaniment to the evening.  Martinis are probably too American for either film.  This is a British battle. By the way, both films, especially the claustrophobic Sleuth, work well on home screens.