"Used People" review, Jan. 22, 1993

By DONALD PORTER
Standard-Examiner staff 

Good roles for women are so few and far between that it’s something of an event when a film like “Used People” comes along.

Basically a tale of women whose lives have been made miserable by their associations with men, “Used People” is offbeat and quirky, offering no easy conclusions or solutions for its characters. It’s also a film about loosening up after the tragedy of divorce and death, and the consequences of freeing oneself, or refusing to.

Shirley MacLaine plays Pearl, the cranky widow and matriarch of an eccentric New York City clan. Imagine the character she played in “Terms of Endearment” and you’re in synch.

Pearl’s marriage was not a good one. Her husband, Jack, provided financially for the family, but the relationship between husband and wife wasn’t close or loving. Now, on the day of his funeral, an Italian named Joe (Marcello Mastroianni) – a casual acquaintance of Jack’s – has interrupted the family gathering to ask Pearl for a date.

Joe’s inappropriate but genuinely affectionate advances trigger a chain reaction in Pearl’s family, eventually causing the members of the dysfunctional brood to confront their myriad problems.

There’s Bibby (Kathy Bates), whose weight problem and failed marriage have been a constant source of friction between herself, Pearl and sister Norma (Marcia Gay Harden).

Norma, on the other hand, has taken flight from the depression surrounding the death of one of her children by masquerading as a series of movie stars: Marilyn Monroe, Barbra Streisand and Audrey Hepburn among them. In turn, her surviving son, nicknamed Sweet Pea (Matthew Branton), has retreated into a delusion of his own, believing he has become invincible.

The calming character in this combustible mix is Joe, the love-sick romantic. He pleads with Pearl to cast aside her doubt and apprehension, and to go with her heart – to for once in her life be daring and carefree. His philosophy has a rippling effect on the other characters, including Frieda and Becky, played by Jessica Tandy and Sylvia Sydney, two longtime friends who disagree about almost everything. Soon, everyone’s thinking about change and taking chances.

Some have compared “Used People” to “Moonstruck.” While it’s not as dramatically cohesive or rigidly plotted as that film, “Used People” does have its charms – primarily contained in the odd assortment of characters. 

The script by sometime actor Todd Graff – who also wrote the screenplay for the upcoming American remake of the Dutch thriller “The Vanishing” – ranges from cute to sarcastic to wacky. And director Beeban Kidron joins in the fun by employing more close-ups than a Sergio Leone Western.

“Used People” is a nice alternative to the kiddie-driven movie marketplace. Imagine that, a movie made for adults. 

'Damage' review, Jan. 22, 1993

By DONALD PORTER

Standard-Examiner staff 

That old saw about the third time being the charm certainly applies to “Damage,” film No. 3 within a span of two weeks to address the subject of obsessive love and sex. Infinitely more thoughtful and a lot less explicit than either “The Lover” or “Body of Evidence,” “Damage” takes a clear-eyed approach to its topic, emerging as one of the most compelling adult dramas in months.

 

Based on the novel by Josephine Hart and directed by Louis Malle (“Au Revior Les Enfants”), “Damage” is a disturbing look at a doomed, destructive romance between Dr. Stephen Fleming (Jeremy Irons), an esteemed British politician, and Anna Barton (Juliette Binoche), the girlfriend of his son, Martyn (Rupert Graves).

 

We are left to surmise that prior to this dalliance, Stephen has been perfectly monogamous in his marriage to wife Ingrid (Miranda Richardson). It’s plain to see by the way he charges into the relationship that he’s been repressing his emotions for years, and that Anna affords him the opportunity to release a lifetime’s cache of frustration and sexual denial.

 

What’s not so apparent is why Stephen is so willing to betray not only Ingrid’s trust, but also Martyn’s. Why would a father pursue an affair with his son’s lover?

 

Because he’s out of control, that’s why. Initially, he recoils from the affair when Martyn and Anna are finally engaged. But he’s hooked, and-shortly thereafter continues the liaisons.

 

The film’s most horrifying moment comes just afterward, when Anna confides to Stephen that she surely wouldn’t have consented to marriage to Martyn if her older lover hadn’t been part of the package deal. Stephen’s response is a perfectly evil smile.

 

What Stephen doesn’t understand, even though Anna warns him, is that she’s been “damaged” by love in the past – there are vague references to an incestuous relationship with her late brother – and since surviving that episode describes herself as “dangerous,” because she knows whatever crisis looms, she will be alive and kicking after the furor subsides.

 

More than a dark infidelity drama, “Damage” is a film that perceptively investigates the dynamics of an extramarital affair. It’s something that happens all of the time in our society – everyone knows someone who’s been involved in, or touched by, adultery. But movies haven’t been all that great at dissecting the phenomenon, opting more often for the sensational (“Fatal Attraction”) than for stories that possess the ring of truth.

 

Granted, “Damage” concerns people of privilege and position – not to mention the bizarre father-son-lover triangle – but that aspect of the story only serves to compound the disaster of betrayal with the potential for public humiliation.

 

Watching “Damage” is troubling, because you know all along that the affair can come to no possible good, and that people will be hurt when it blows up. Just how badly they are hurt is something we’re not altogether prepared for, though.

 

Malle’s direction is superb. He handles the sex with a frankness that, for the most part, avoids being graphic. There’s plenty of huffing and puffing, but not nearly the nudity contained in the aforementioned “Body of Evidence” and “The Lover;” the other two films that – along with “Damage” – were briefly tagged with NC-17s.

 

Even with Malle’s sure hand, “Damage” needs strong, believable, passionate actors. Irons is sensational, as is Binoche. But Richardson comes close to stealing the film as Ingrid. The scene in which she takes her husband to task for his betrayal is shattering. 

Amazingly, this is Richardson’s third incredible performance since autumn – she previously co-starred in “Enchanted April” and “The Crying Game.” The only question now is: Which performance will be nominated come Oscar time?

 

Documentarian Bill Couturie, Jan. 22, 1993

By DONALD PORTER

Standard-Examiner staff 

Bill Couturie laughs as he recalls a conversation about his 1988 documentary “Dear America: Letters Home from Vietnam,” because it so perfectly illustrates the often absurd relationship between the art and commerce of filmmaking. 

Someone from the company distributing the film into the TV market rang him up: “Now that it’s on commercial television, we need an extra 20 minutes,” this person told Couturie. “Could you add 20 minutes to ‘Dear America’? You must have some extra letters lying around.” 

“Guys, it’s not a sausage,” was the director’s incredulous response. “You don’t just add 20 minutes.” 

In fact, Couturie turned the request into “Memorial,” a short companion piece to “Dear America,” which nabbed an Oscar nomination last year. 

Couturie’s latest film, “Earth and the American Dream,” is playing in competition at this month’s Sundance Film Festival. It’s a sweeping documentary, surveying American society’s relationship to the environment from the landing of Columbus in 1492 right up to present day. And, as you might guess, it takes a disheartening inventory of our society’s abuse of nature. 

Couturie’s background is diverse. He began making animated films for “Sesame Street,” then segued into cinema verite documentaries as an associate producer on “Who Are the DeBolts and Where Did They Get 19 Kids?” – the Best Feature Documentary Academy Award winner for 1978. More recently, he produced “Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt,” which won the documentary Oscar for 1989 – the film looked at the lives of several people who have died from complications of the AIDS virus – and finished directing a music video for Michael Jackson’s song, “Gone Too Soon,” a couple of months ago. 

“Earth and the American Dream” utilizes a technique that Couturie pioneered with “Dear America”: Lots of famous actors – Mel Gibson, Jeremy Irons, Bette Midler and others – supply the dialogue in “Earth and the American Dream.” In “Dear America,” they read letters written by soldiers to their families, sweethearts and friends back home. In “Earth and the American Dream,” another stellar cast of voices reads from letters, journals, diaries, speeches, newspaper accounts and historical books.

“Obviously, there is some thought to marquee value,” Couturie says from his San Francisco office, explaining his fondness for using major stars. “But it’s not simply that. It’s very hrd in a brief number of words to create a character and to create a sense of time and place. And there’s a reason these big stars are big stars: They’re very, very talented actors.” Rounding up the talent to provide the voices took some doing, the filmmaker insists, even though many of the actors in Hollyw0od agree with his film’s environmentalist point of view.

“They work a lot,” he says, “and when they’re not working, they want to spend time on vacation or with their families. To get through to Dustin Hoffman took me over a year, even though he did the narration on ‘Common Threads’ and helped win me an Oscar.”

For assistance, Couturie turned to the Environmental Media Association (EMA), which functions as a liaison between the environmental community and various media. EMA’s board of directors includes the heads of all of the studios, Couturie says, and super-agent Michael Ovitz, the head of Creative Artists Agency and the man widely regarded as the most powerful in the movie business. “Super heavyweights,” Couturie, a CAA client, calls them. 

“It takes all of that – the Oscar, the track record, CAA’s and EMA's credibility – to get through to these people,” Couturie says. Plus, now it’s the thing to do with documentaries: finding stars to read letters and such in films – a la Ken Burns’ “The Civil War” on PBS and the recent “Lincoln” documentary on ABC. 

“Frankly, these guys are getting deluged with requests. So it’s more difficult to get them, even for worthwhile projects, than it used to be.” 

By sticking to the words of his subjects, and without commenting on them, Couturie avoids what he terms the “official interaction” created when a filmmaker interviews the people in a film. 

“The very nature of an interview changes what people say,” the director says. “It can be for the better, because it can be entertaining. On the other hand, when you interview someone, they can’t not be aware of this big hunk of glass staring at them. Even in a good interview, they’re telling you what they want to tell you, and they’re not telling you what they don’t want to tell you – no matter how good an interviewer you are.” 

Couturie theorizes this is the reason he’s been drawn of late to historical subjects; it’s his desire to permit the story to tell itself. 

“One way I describe these films is ‘history haiku,’” he says, referring to the distillation of some 10,000 hours of film footage reviewed by his staff of researchers – 200 hours of which he dragged into the editing room before whittling his film down to its current 80 minutes.

“With ‘Dear America,’ you could go into the library and say, ‘I'm looking for stuff on Vietnam.’ With this film, there was no limit to what we could look at. I liken it to finding hundreds of needles in a huge, huge haystack. It’s by far the most challenging film I’ve ever made.”

‘Sundance Film Festival: Where Hollywood goes to find new talent,’ Jan. 22, 1993

By DONALD PORTER

Standard-Examiner staff 

SALT LAKE CITY – Left Coast chic and hometown conservatism met head-on at the opening of the 15th Sundance Film Festival Thursday evening. 

The occasion was the world premiere screening of “Into the West,” an Irish-American co-production that marked the beginning of 10 days of what organizers hope will be the best and most representative of this year’s crop of American independent films.

At a reception in the Utah Arts Center prior to the premiere, the Basic Black Crowd – filmmakers, film company employees and assorted others who wear black to fit in – literally rubbed elbows with festival sponsors, reporters and many Utah lawmakers taking a break from their duties up the street at the State Capitol Building. The tinkling of champagne glasses and the snarfing of finger food went hand-in-hand with discussions of all things related to film and the festival.

Gov. Mike Leavitt stopped by to congratulate the Sundance Institute for its efforts; Sundance has been running the festival since 1985. Leavitt stressed that the Beehive State’s quality of life is one of its prime assets, and that “a large part of that is quality of art in every form.” 

Gary Beer, president of the Sundance Institute, remarked that ticket sales for 1993 have exceeded all past festivals, and that some 300 media representatives from around the world will be covering this year’s gathering. 

Additionally, Beer said, approximately 6,000 filmmakers, industry professionals and movie fans will descend on Park City during the next week or so, depositing an estimated $6 million into the local economy. 

Then the action moved across West Temple Street to the Crossroads Cinemas for the screening of “Into the West.” In remarks prior to the screening, the movie’s less-than-effusive star, Gabriel Byrne, called the film “a labor of love,” adding, “We are very proud that it’s been chosen as the opening night film for your prestigious festival.” Then he added, almost cautiously, “It's a genuine family film.” 

And so it is: Directed by Mike Newell (“Enchanted April”) and written by Jim Sheridan (director
of “My Left Foot”), “Into the West” is a film about two motherless boys, their hard-drinking father (Byrne) and a beautiful white horse that leads them all on a wild chase from Dublin to Ireland’s western coast. It’s a sure sign of the gathering’s growing all-inclusiveness that the festival would kick off with a heartwarmer of a movie that’s safe for the kiddies.

The festival’s stature is unmatched in its importance among American independents – those films made outside the film centers of Los Angeles and New York, and without major studio financial support. In 1985, Beer acknowledged, “the pickings were slim” at Sundance. Now the festival is the place where Hollywood comes fishing for new talent, waving money for distribution deals and hiring new directors and writers. 

“Into the West” already has an American distributor, Miramax Films Corp. But most of the films playing in the dramatic and documentary competitions during the festival don’t, so their directors and/or producers will be hoping for success at Sundance and, consequently, a bright future ahead. 

Today, the festival moves to Park City, with alternate screenings at the Sundance Resort and Salt Lake City’s Tower Theatre.

'Hamlet' review, Jan. 18, 1991

By DONALD PORTER

Standard-Examiner staff 

I confess. When I heard Mel Gibson was set to play the lead in “Hamlet,” I feared a cataclysmic screen disaster on the order of Clint Eastwood singing in “Paint Your Wagon.” 

But the fears were unfounded. Gibson is good. Capable, even. 

Sure, he’s no Larry Olivier. And he seems aware of his limitations. So he plays Hamlet, the vengeful Dane, as ferocious instead of introspective and brooding. Amazingly, it works. 

Purists may protest, but this film adaptation of Shakespeare’s 400-year-old play is accessible and energetic. Therefore, it has the potential to introduce the Bard of Avon to a wide spectrum of the American public. 

It will come as no surprise that the man behind “Hamlet,” the Mel-movie, is director Franco Zeffirelli, who made popular cinematic adaptations of “Romeo and Juliet” and “The Taming of the Shrew.” He aims to make audience-pleasers, and with those films he succeeded. Time will tell for “Hamlet,” but neither Gibson’s fans nor those of classic theater should be able to find much to whine about here. 

“Hamlet” is the complex tale of a Danish prince, Hamlet, who grieves over the loss of his father, the king. Even more distressing is the appearance of the dead monarch’s ghost, informing Hamlet that the death was, in fact, murder – committed by the king’s own brother, Claudius (Alan Bates). 

This knowledge, coupled with the immediate marriage of his mother, Gertrude (Glenn Close), to Claudius, effectively drives Hamlet ’round the bend. And as his madness flowers, drawing more and more characters into the fracas, danger and intrigue mounts and multiplies; loyalties are suspect, treachery awaits his every move and even good people are destroyed in the havoc wrought by Hamlet in his quest to avenge his father's death. 

In short, this is a great story, full of passion, romance and skullduggery. And all of it hinges on Gibson’s ability to carry it off, which he does. He’s a blustering presence on the screen, constantly on the move, a raving lunatic with a dark purpose in mind. 

Zeffirelli buys considerable insurance for his star in the form of his supporting cast. Close plays a youthful-looking Gertrude with a wide-eyed openness that deflects suspicion. Ian Holm is rock solid as Claudius’ loyal Polonius, and his tragic end – even though we know it’s coming – still shocks and dismays. And Bates’ performance as Claudius is a fine contrast to Gibson’s Hamlet. Claudius, wary of his nephew’s fury, is reserved, cautious. 

“Hamlet” is a revelation. Gibson is more than an action star. What a nice surprise.

Lawrence Bender, producer of "'Reservoir Dogs," Jan. 8, 1993

EDITOR'S NOTE: This interview was conducted at the 1992 Sundance Film Festival. 

By DONALD PORTER
Standard-Examiner staff

PARK CITY - Lawrence Bender sits at a table in the hospitality suite o f Z Place, where press and filmmakers come to mingle, do business and escape the crush of humanity on Main Street during the Sundance Film Festival. 

Bender has a broad smile on his face, conveying his feelings of wonder and excitement to all who see him. He’s been that way for a couple of days, since “Reservoir Dogs,” a gritty crime film he produced, began getting most of the ink and much-coveted buzz at this 1992 edition of the premiere festival for American independent filmmakers. 

“This is a really great time for me,” Bender says ,with barely contained enthusiasm. “I’m like a kid in a candy shop. I’ve made a couple of other movies, but I was a production assistant on a TV commercial two months before we went into production on ‘Reservoir Dogs’ because I had no money.” 

Then Bender, formerly an actor, had the good fortune to pass along a script by his friend and former video store clerk, Quentin Tarantino, to his acting teacher. The teacher, in turn, gave the script to actor Harvey Keitel (“Mean Streets,” “Bugsy”), who read it, loved it and helped Bender and Tarantino get the movie made.

“Harvey Keitel is one of mine and Quentin’s all-time favorite actors,” Bender explains. “And when I got a message on my answering machine from Harvey Keitel that he loved the script, it was the dream of my life come true.” 

But Keitel became so involved – financing early casting sessions in New York that landed Steve Buscemi (“Barton Fink,” “In the Soup”) as one of the lead actors – that Bender asked Keitel, over supper one evening at the Russian Tea Room, if he would become a coproducer on the film. To which Keitel replied: “Lawrence, I’ve been waiting for you to say this. What took you so long?’”

Inspired by Stanley Kubrick's “The Killing,” “Reservoir Dogs” is a film about the aftermath of a botched diamond heist; as the tough guys who took part meet afterward in a warehouse to sort out what went wrong, why and, most important, who’s to blame. 

“But what’s different about this film is that you never actually see the robbery,” Bender explains with the kind of verve he might have used when scrounging for money to make the $1.1 million production. “And when they come back to this warehouse where they’re supposed to meet, it’s like ‘Rashomon’ – everyone comes back with a different story. 

“And as an audience member, you really don’t know what actually happened. ... And then at a certain point in the movie, you start to understand a little bit more than they know. The movie’s sort of structured in chapters, and it’s very intriguing. In most movies, you get the questions and then you get the answers. But in this movie, sometimes you get the answers and then the questions.” 

And you get something else: unvarnished violence. Point-blank shootouts, sadistic torture and bleeding wounds are included in the price of admission – which, Bender asserts, is precisely the point. 

“The script is a very visceral, brutal depiction of a group of guys,” he says, looking like he’s answered this question more than a couple of times this week. “And the movie is really about loyalty – not among robbers, but amongst men. And loyalty taken to an extreme – such an extreme that extreme things happen because of loyalty. And you start questioning, ‘What is loyalty all about, anyway?’

“And as far as the violence, Quentin actually feels that film is a place where violence should be shown, because violence and action are very cinematic, and that kind of material can really be shown in a very cinematic way.” 

In this regard, Tarantino’s film recalls the more violent and machismo-infused films of Martin Scorsese, Sam Peckinpah and John Woo – influences Bender eagerly acknowledges. (In fact, Tarantino is currently at work on a project with Woo.)

“We actually shot certain scenes that could have been cut to be more graphically violent, but we didn’t do it because it didn’t work the way we wanted it to,” Bender explains. “And actually, most of the violence happens off- screen.

“So, to me, I’m really glad that people come out with that reaction; because when you see a picture and you don’t see a lot of graphic violence but you get a feeling of brutality, we feel like we’ve done our job.”

'Reservoir Dogs' review, Jan. 8, 1993

By DONALD PORTER

Standard-Examiner staff 

The title, all by itself, gives a pretty good indication of what’s in store when you sit down to watch “Reservoir Dogs.” It’s as visceral a moviegoing experience as you’ll get anywhere.

The film was something of a sensation at last year’s Sundance Film Festival, and is only now making its way back to a Utah theater. Its writer-director, first-timer Quentin Tarantino, has done himself proud with “Reservoir Dogs,” creating a bold genre film that’s repulsive, hilarious, sexist, violent, profane and utterly – utterly – engrossing.

Inspired by Stanley Kubrick’s ’50s heist film “The Killing,” Tarantino’s “Reservoir Dogs” opens with a gang of robbers gathered in a coffee shop. They’re analyzing the lyrics of Madonna’s “Like a Virgin,” debating the etiquette of tipping waitresses and preparing to rob a jewelry store. The language is blunt and offensive, but we realize we’re onto something different here; Tarantino is a style- and violence-wonk in the tradition of Martin Scorsese: There’s artistry galore, but he makes you pay for the experience. 

From the restaurant scene, Tarantino cuts forward to minutes after the caper – we never actually see the robbery, but that's OK ... really. The crime went down badly, and a robber named Mr. Orange (Tim Roth) is gut-shot, screaming and bleeding profusely in the back seat of a getaway car driven by Mr. White (Harvey Keitel). They rush back to the prearranged meeting place, an empty warehouse, and wait for the others to follow.

Soon enough, the rest have returned, including Mr. Pink (Steve Buscemi) and Mr. Blond (Michael Madsen). The ringleader, Joe Cabot (Lawrence Tierney), has mandated the color-coded aliases to prevent each of his men from knowing the others; only Cabot and his son, Nice Guy Eddie (Chris Penn), use their real names. 

As Mr. Orange bleeds to death , on the floor, the rest of the gang discusses, excitedly, the possibility that they were betrayed by an informer. If so, that would mean one of them is a cop. And so Tarantino uses a series of flashbacks to provide background on each of the remaining robbers – Mr. Brown, played by Tarantino himself, buys the farm early on – detailing how they came to be involved in the diamond heist. 

“Reservoir Dogs” is in many ways similar to the hyperstylized crime films of white-hot Hong Kong action master John Woo (“The Killer,” “Hard Boiled”). And Scorsese and Sam Peckinpah are other obvious influences. What seems to set Tarantino apart from these others –the professed adherence to “professionalism” and an intense friendship between Mr. White and Mr. Orange notwithstanding – is an overall emotional detachment and a vision that’s ultimately nihilistic. 

Where his predecessors scoop some form of redemption, however meager, from the ruins of his protagonists’ ordeals, Tarantino appears to revel in the brutalization of both his characters and the audience. The scene that’s been getting all the attention, and rightfully so, is the one in which the psychotic Mr. Blond produces a cop he’s taken hostage and – to the tune of the annoying ’70s pop tune “Stuck in the Middle With You” – proceeds to carve the patrolman’s ear off. While the actual removal of the ear takes place off-camera, the experience is unusually harrowing; Tarantino plays the violence in his film realistically, as opposed to the cartoonish brand of mayhem we typically receive via mainstream Hollywood. 

“Reservoir Dogs” is by no means a “fun” movie. It is, however, a well-made film and one that should be seen by those interested in exciting talent – both in front of, and behind, the camera.