Of Mice and Men: Depression Dream

James Franco and Chris O'Dowd in Of Mice and Men (Photo: Richard Phibbs)

Depression plays are a distinctive genre in American theatre, and Of Mice and Men, which John Steinbeck fashioned from his 1937 novel, is perhaps the finest example written by anyone other than Clifford Odets. (Odets was the undisputed master of the form, and Awake and Sing!, produced two years earlier than Of Mice and Men, was his masterpiece.) Steinbeck’s book is practically a play – it’s mostly dialogue and it has a clear dramatic arc – so the transposition was a natural one. The play opened on Broadway while the novel was still on the bestseller lists. The original production starred Wallace Ford as George and Broderick Crawford as the physically strong but mentally challenged Lennie, whom George has known since childhood and has always cared for and protected. There was a marvelous film version in 1940, directed by Lewis Milestone, with Burgess Meredith and Lon Chaney Jr. and an Aaron Copland score that I’d call the greatest music ever written for a movie. It was remade in 1992 with Gary Sinise and John Malkovich, and there have been a couple of TV adaptations, including a memorable version in 1968, directed by Ted Kotcheff, with George Segal and Nicol Williamson. But perhaps because it’s shown up so often on the screen, it’s rarely revived on stage, so Anna D. Shapiro’s beautiful new Broadway production is an occasion. (The last New York mounting was in 1987.)

Juliet, Naked: Getting it Right

Rose Byrne and Chris O'Dowd in Juliet, Naked. (Photo: IMDB)

Nick Hornby’s 2009 novel Juliet, Naked has an irresistible premise. Its heroine, Annie, lives in an English seaside town, working at the local museum. Her long-time live-in boyfriend, Duncan, teaches university classes in film and TV but his obsession is an indie musician named Tucker Crowe who mysteriously disappeared from the rock scene years ago after releasing a heartbreak album called "Juliet", stirred into existence by a high-profile break-up with a beautiful model. Duncan and other Tucker Crowe fanatics gather on a website, spending hours dissecting his lyrics and speculating about his life. When Crowe’s old recording company releases an album of Juliet demos called "Juliet, Naked", and sends Duncan a pre-release copy, he goes into fandom overdrive, penning a review that proclaims it a masterpiece, Annie, who is feeling increasingly remote from Duncan, publishes her own critique for the website under a pseudonym, declaring it dreary and half-baked without the sophisticated musicianship that distinguishes the album it was just a preparation for – and Tucker Crowe himself e-mails her from America to second her opinion. Unexpectedly, these two, both at loose ends in their vastly different lives, become (e-mail) pen pals, and then circumstances bring him to England, where they finally meet.

Bridesmaids: Still Waiting at the Altar

Usually when I review a film for Critics at Large, I avoid reading the reviews of said movie. Not because I am worried about being influenced by my colleagues – I'm not – but because I like to write my reviews without having stumbled across an idea or bon mot that someone thought up before me. I recognize, of course, that readers may think I cribbed from someone else anyway if, in fact, any point I make about a film has already been remarked upon by another pundit. But I’ll take that chance, assuring you that my ideas and critiques are fully my own. If I do quote someone else I always identify them as the source of the quotation.

That review policy only applies to movies that I review upon the day of their commercial release. There are others that I don’t initially review, because there’s not much to say about them, or only get around to seeing at a rep house weeks or months after they open. In those instances, I will likely have read some reviews of those movies by then and one thing I keep noticing – and Critics at Large’s David Churchill and Kevin Courrier have pointed this out, too (see, I told you I credit others with the same point) – is that too many film critics adopt a pack mentality when it comes to their reviews. It likely explains why so many movie reviews on Rotten Tomatoes – a web site that collates critics’ reviews – have a commonality, both negative and positive. There are a couple of curmudgeons (yes, you Armond White) who can be counted on to always be on the opposite side of any critical consensus (and I am not sure that White doesn’t do that on “principle” just to be contrary), but not many. I like to think that we, on this site, do go against the grain – and often. Mostly, my fellow film critics can be counted on to have more in common with each other in how they relate to any specific movie, than to be on opposing teams in the debate. Bridesmaids, an amiable but overrated comedy which opened last week, is the latest movie to demonstrate this point.

Ghosts and the City: Hulu's Deadbeat

Andrew T. Jackson and Tyler Labine star in Hulu's Deadbeat

Hulu may have been one of the first streaming services available online (and still offers some of the widest selections of rebroadcast television content from American network and cable sources), but Hulu Plus, its subscription-based younger brother, is still lagging behind the other streamcasters (Netflix, Amazon Prime) for original scripted programming. Hulu Plus has garnered some well-deserved praise for bringing some exclusive UK exports to its American viewers: not only the delightful Moone Boy (Chris O'Dowd's semi-autobiographical coming-of-age comedy set in small-town Ireland in the late 80s) and Showcase's Endgame, the cancelled-too-soon Canadian cult hit, but also co-producing The Wrong Mans, starring Gavin & Stacey's and soon-to-be CBS's Late Late Show host James Corden, with the BBC. (I'll save the details of my unabashed enthusiasm for Corden and the comically intense Wrong Mans for when its much-anticipated second season airs in 2015.) Last spring however Hulu Plus stepped firmly into new and exclusive original programming with the low-key, under the radar, paranormal comedy Deadbeat, which demonstrated the potential for Hulu to play with the big boys.

Death By Franchise: The Cloverfield Paradox

Gugu Mbatha-Raw in The Cloverfield Paradox, currently streaming on Netflix.

Note: This review contains spoilers for The Cloverfield Paradox (as well as Bad Robot’s other Cloverfield films).

I’m very fond of Dan Trachtenberg’s 10 Cloverfield Lane, but as I mentioned when I wrote on that film in 2016, its connection to Bad Robot’s Cloverfield brand is not only unnecessary, it’s actively detrimental to the film’s overall quality. But, since it wouldn’t have been green-lit without this connection, I have to grin and bear it, because the taut little thriller living inside that brand-name wrapper is worth it. The Cloverfield Paradox, unfortunately – the next in what has apparently become a series of spec scripts turned into franchise films by Bad Robot – does not have the added benefit of being excellent on its own. It’s a scattered and inconsistent sci-fi thriller whose Cloverfield connections are even more painfully shoehorned in than its predecessor’s.

Two-Faced: Jesse Eisenberg in The Double

Jesse Eisenberg in The Double

As a rule, boyish young actors who achieve stardom in lead roles that call for them to be brainy, neurotic (or at least social maladjusted), physically unimposing, and foot-shuffling awkward with women either toughen up and acquire some grit as they get older (like Dustin Hoffman) or shift into supporting and character roles (like Anthony Perkins and Matthew Broderick). What’s fascinating about Jesse Eisenberg, aside from the fact that he’s a fine actor, is the way he updates the bookish-male-virgin roles of yesteryear, in a way that makes them strikingly contemporary. Eisenberg was pretty much in the conventional Brandon DeWilde mold, albeit smarter and hornier, in his first picture, Roger Dodger (2002), where the suspense hook was whether his ill-chosen mentor, a misogynistic skirt-chaser played by Campbell Scott, would in succeed in infecting the sweet kid with his demons and turn him into a heartless, lying serial humper, like himself. But since then, Eisenberg’s characters have largely continued to be clumsily innocent about romantic and sexual relationships, while being wised up about everything else.