THE PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER

It's odd that so many films are aimed at teenagers, but almost none are actually about them. This wasn't always the case. In the 80's there were the films of John Hugues and Cameron Crowe, but they faded away. Outside of Superbad and Mean Girls, my generation didn't have a large cannon of our own, so we clung to those 80's hits that had been so popular with our older siblings and younger parents. We all loved Breakfast Club in highschool, but I preferred Fast Times. I'm probably too old to claim The Perks of Being A Wallflower as part of my generation (though the book was published in the late 90's and takes place in '91), but I'm so glad the people just under me will have it to call their own.

The film follows Charlie (Logan Lerman), a freshman who's having trouble making friends and is on medication to help him deal with the emotional fallout of a series of personal tragedies suffered over the years. Eventually he's taken in by a pair of seniors: Patrick and Samantha (Ezra Miller and Emma Watson respectively). They too have issues. Patrick is openly gay but is in a difficult relationship with a closeted jock. Sam struggles with grades and the unearned "reputation" she got in Freshman year. Charlie worships them both, and it's easy to see why. They frequent midnight scereenings of Rocky Horror and have excellent taste in music, mostly post-punk and glam-rock.

Between all the Dr. Frank N Furter and David Bowie, it doesn't take long for Charlie to develop feelings for Sam, leading to all sorts of difficult complications. In the wrong hands Sam could have been an unfortunate collection of Manic Pixie tropes, but Watson's smart performance avoids most of the traps. Yes she has her quirks, but she's also very down to earth. A real person who makes some fairly typical and relatable mistakes. Ezra Miller is also excellent as Patrick, who's allowed to be actually gay vs. being forced to play "movie gay." It's really outrageous how rarely movies portray gay people without resorting to camp caricature.

Lerman also does fine in the lead, even if he's sometimes let down by director Stephen Chbosky (who also wrote the script based on his own book) who unloads the mystery of Charlie's emotional issues a little too slowly. Also, as much as the film gets it, there's still a tiny bit too much fantasy here. But more often than not it all works, and it all gels together in one of the best endings I've seen all year.

Perks didn't get that wide a release, but a film as heartfelt as this is probably destined for cult status. Pacing issues aside, it may very well earn a place in the cannon of great Teen Movies.

Grade: A-

BONDATHON: DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER

How do you solve problem like James Bond? The producers did the best they could without Connery. They re-cast 007, hoping that it was the role, not the actor that made the series the monumental success that it was. Unfortunately the box office receipts did not bear that out. On Her Majesty's Secret Service wasn’t a flop by any means, it was one of the top grossing film’s of 1969, but it still earned far less than its predecessor and received very mixed reviews, many hostile towards new Bond, George Lazenby.

Knowing Lazenby was not a viable option and that Connery wasn’t interested in returning, producing partners Saltzman and Broccoli set about the unenviable task of re-casting James Bond yet again. Some felt that it was time to make Bond appeal to younger audiences by casting an American as Bond. Such a thing would be unthinkable today, but back in 1970, Saltzman and Broccoli where insistent on it. The pair even talked to Batman star Adam West before signing John Gavin (Psycho) to don the tux. That is until the studio insisted Connery return for the next installment. Despite his initial trepidation, he agreed on the condition he be paid a record breaking salary (which he donated to charity). It was firmly understood that Sean would only be returning for one film, and so a more permanent recasting of Bond was put off for another film and Connery returned to serve as a sort of band-aid for a franchise in need.

If On Her Majesty’s Secret Service was the ballsiest Bond yet (ending with the death of 007’s bride), Diamond’s are Forever is the safest. Considering the ending of that film, one would expect Diamonds to be something of a revenge film. Indeed the prologue shows Bond savagely hunting down and killing Blofeld (Charles Gray). Not knowing what to do with the rest of the film, M (Bernard lee) sends Bond off on the trail of African diamond smugglers. He attaches himself to smuggler Tiffany Case (Jill St. John). In a neat twist Bond kills Tiffinay’s real contact and switches wallets with him, leading her uttering best line of the movie: “You just killed James Bond!” It should be noted that Bond’s only form of I.D. seams to be his membership card to the Playboy Club.

This screen cap should constitute a spoiler as it's the best part of the film.

They grab some diamonds and head off to Vegas, which in this film is a circus dreamscape where elephants gamble and Bond rides around in a moon buggy for some reason. Eventually the supper-spy unravels some convoluted business involving a kidnapped Howard Huges surrogate (played by sausage magnate Jimmy Dean), Blofeld (not really dead) and his diamond powered laser satellite (no, really). Director Guy Hamilton tried to bring surreal touches to Bond when he made Goldfinger but these same instincts run amuck here and reek of desperation. It’s just amazing how thin this film feels. Nothing really feels connected to anything else. Bond wonders around being Bond. Women are slept with, thugs are punched, cars are driven. The films two Bond girls aren’t particularly memorable and come off a bit shrill. Connery is good half the time and visibly bored the rest of it.

But Connery could be giving the best performance of his life and it wouldn't matter in the face of the film's real problem, which is that there's no main villain till over an hour into the film. A genre film lives and dies by its villain. Even the worst Bond film’s so far have had a clear villain or threat right from the get-go. After saving the world six times, some loosely assembled diamond smuggling story isn’t enough to keep the story going until Blofeld shows up. but by then the movie is already dead. It doesn't help that Charles Gray looks and acts nothing like the Blofeld we've seen in any of the other films and his SPECTRE organization couldn't be mentioned because of rights issues. The film doesn't know what to do with him. I'll ask again, why wasn't this film all about killing Blofeld from start to finish? The producers insistence to make Diamonds as if Secret Service never happened kills the film because Bond has no real motivation. A modern franchise would try to play on the links between the films and creates a sense of continuity and resonance. Instead we're stuck in this land of sudo-reboots.

The closest we get to villains for most of the film are two assassins, Mr. Wint and Mr. Kidd (Bruce Glover and Putter Smith, respectively). Despite not being very menacing, they are the film’s most successful element. Up till now the series has had several homosexual characters. Their homosexuality was never overly explicit (censorship issues) and they where always villains. Wint & Kidd aren’t particularly different. They fall very squarely into the ugly 'gay killer' trope and their presence should date the film terribly, but the fact of the matter is that they are an adorable couple. You get the feeling they’ve been together for years but never left the puppy dog stage of infatuation. They finish each others sentences and murders. Props to the actors (particularly Putter Smith) for taking their roles just seriously enough to imbue them with affection. At any rate, as hammy as they are, they are the only characters in the film that feel alive in any way.

As for fidelity to the source material, a lot of the broad strokes are there, certain scenes and character names are the same and they do all go to Las Vegas, but that's about it. Diamonds was the third Fleming novel, written before Bond had graduated to saving the world. It's a mediocre detective novel, and a film version makes no sense at this point in the series which explains why so much was changed. Diamonds Are Forever the book and the film are not essential entries in their respective series, but the novel fairs a bit better if for no other reason than a great closing paragraph equating diamonds with death, something indestructible, unconquerable and eternal. 

Grade: C-


Diamonds Are Forever is currently streaming on Netflix Instant.

Previous Bondathon entries:

Dr. No

From Russia With Love

Goldfinger

Thunderball / Never Say Never Again

You Only Live Twice
On Her Majesty's Secret Service 
Diamonds Are Forever
Live and Let Die
The Man With The Golden Gun 
The Spy Who Loved Me
Moonraker
For Your Eyes Only
Octopussy
A View To A Kill 
The Living Daylights 
Licence to Kill
Goldeneye 
Tomorrow Never Dies 
The World Is Not Enough  
Die Another Day 
Casino Royale 
Quantum of Solace
Skyfall

 

THINGS I MISSED: BEGINNERS

At it's best, Beginners is a film about misfiring synapses. How our memories don't flow in a straight line, and how things get jumbled up and messy. It's also a little too humorless for it's own good. The story is essentially that of director Mike Mills. Oliver (Ewan McGregger) is a graphic designer. In the first of several timelines, Oliver's mother has just died and his father Hal (Christopher Plummer) comes out as gay. Hal start over again as a gay man at 75. A brave and difficult thing to attempt if ever there was one. His son however is a different story.

In a further off timeline Hal is dead of lung cancer and Oliver has to deal with it. He's as closed off and private as his father was when he was in the closet. Oliver doesn't do well with women and is afraid to even try. Being morose is better for the art than it is for the artist. But he finds some company in an equally distant French actress played in a charming enough performance by Melanie Laurent (Inglourious Basterds).

Their romance want's to be the backbone of the film, but it's just not as interesting as Hal's story which is positive and life affirming beyond it's LGBT dimensions. It's nice to think that a person can make such a radical life change so late in life and be successful. The film spends much time on Oliver trying to deal with Hal's coming out and death, but Oliver is too vague of a character, painted with slightly too broad of a brush to be of equal interest. His musings on life are amusing and mostly insightful, but they just don't add up to much. Laurent's character is even more problematic. She's not a real person as much as she's an archetypal abstraction of a woman. A lonely screenwriters projection.

What makes up for most of this is the style. The film floats back and forth between Oliver's various memories from four different points in his life. but it's not a mental workout figuring out where you are. The film drifts to whenever it feels it needs to-just the way that memory does. One of the films pleasures is how director Mills illustrates Olivers thoughts for us. When his father is told that he has a tumor the size of a quarter, Mills shows us a quarter against black. Then he shows us all the different combinations of coins that add up to 25 cents. It's always interesting how we think of such mundane things when we get bad news.

Hal's character aside, little of this story feels new but that's appropriate. People have been living variations of stories like this since the beginning of time and will continue to do so. Oliver likes to list what the Sun looked like in 1955 and 2003. What the stars looked like and the cars and the president. Beginners is what the mid-age, auto-biographical, emotionally adrift film looks like in 2011.

Grade: B-