Father's Little Dividend

The sequel picks up one year later with Kay and Buckley announcing their pregnancy to their families.  Typically Stanley is very upset about it.  He thinks the newlyweds are too young and that they don’t have enough money giving him the idea that he’ll have to pay for all the child’s needs.  Ellie reminds him that the two of them got pregnant as soon as they were wed which is faster than what Kay and Buckley did.  She also convinces Stanley to think of the baby as a dividend: “something comes to you and you don’t even lift a finger.  You have none of the responsibilities of the baby, none of the hardships, all you have to do is love it.”  What an awful fucking way to think about your grandchild.  It’s like financing a business venture and getting some return on your investment, or a piece of entertainment that you can pick up and drop as you please with no emotions attached.  Yea, having a grandchild is just like that.  Go fuck yourself.

Putting the absolutely terrible title, and explanation for it, aside I may have enjoyed this film slightly more than the original.  It’s still a horrid affair but Stanley actually comes around to loving being a grandfather which was nice to see.  Also, Ellie and the Dunstans meddle so much in what they think is best for Kay and the baby.  Stanley ends up backing off the most making him look very respectful compared to the others.  Although he does wind up losing the baby while taking him out for a stroll (Stanley decides to leave the baby to watch and then coach a kids soccer game!?)  So any redemption he earned for himself is utterly lost by the end of the movie.

They went for more comedy here than the original which I appreciate but I still didn’t find it funny almost at all.  If you didn’t care for the original this won’t help you out.

Father of the Bride (1950)

Originally this story came from a book of the same name (that explains the father’s opening monologue and narration throughout both this and the ’91 version).  It was a huge bestseller so they turned it into a motion picture.  The plot is exactly the same as the Steve Martin job: daughter gets engaged out of nowhere and the parents help plan the wedding.  In fact the ’91 version is nearly a scene for scene, and in some instances shot for shot with even many lines of dialogue reused, remake of this ’50 one.  I couldn’t fucking believe how identical these two movies were technically.  That’s why it was even more mind blowing that the feel between them is completely different.

Talk about night and day.  Spencer Tracy (Judgement at Nuremburg) plays the father, Stanley Banks, and the main complaint I have is that he remains so crotchety throughout the production.  He’s furiously opposed to his daughter’s engagement and never seems to fully let it go.  At one point he even seriously offers the lovebirds $3,000 to elope so he won’t have to deal with the situation anymore.  This performance reeks too much of its own time for me.  The father-knows-best attitude is really off putting and his reactions seem a little too starkly real.

Stanley’s wife, Ellie (Joan Bennett (Suspiria)), is surprisingly strong considering the general direction of the movie.  She stands up to her husband more than a few times, is happy for her daughter almost right away like Nina and gets just as engaged in arranging the wedding.

Elizabeth Taylor (Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolfe?) plays the bride, Kay, and she’s not very good at all here in my opinion.  She goes too big with her emotions in every scene and comes across as very unnatural.  I know that was partly the acting style of the time but I’ve seen a lot of movies of that era and she inflates her acting even for then.  She’s not nearly as empowered as Annie from the ’91 version but considering the time period I won’t blame the movie for things like expecting Kay to become a housewife after she gets married.

The groom is…oh I don’t know why they went with this name…I mean there are so many names and they settled on this one?...it’s gonna hurt a little to write this one down…ok here a goes…Buckley Dunstan (Don Taylor (Stalag 17)).  That’s the name they should’ve given the wedding planner, not the guy who’s supposed to be ultra likeable.  Whatever, he does fine and is probably the character that’s the most similar to the ’91 version.

There is a wedding coordinator but he’s not some off the wall euro trash guy.  Instead he’s an incredibly snobby Englishman that assumes the Banks’ are much richer than they really are.  This character plays a very minor role here being in only two scenes I think.

The changes to the story are really so minor that I’ll only go through a few brief examples.  When the Banks meet the Dunstans (the groom’s parents) George doesn’t accidentally break a mirror and throw their bank book in the pool.  Here he gets totally wasted, babbles on about Kay endlessly and falls asleep on the couch.  The reason why Kay and Buckley break up for a moment in the middle of the movie is because Buckley wants to honeymoon in Nova Scotia where he can fish instead of gifting her a blender (both Kay and Annie irrationally overreact equally though).  Kay has two younger brothers closer to her age than just one that’s thirteen years younger.  Instead of meeting abroad Kay and Buckley apparently went out for a little while and got engaged right at home.  The weird thing is no one seemed to notice.  Kay’s parents have never heard of Buckley and are surprised at everything she tells them.  Having Annie get engaged while away from home was a much better and much smarter move in the ’91 one.

Man what a dreary film.  For something that’s supposed to be a comedy there’s hardly anything funny in it.  And what I mean by that is there’s very little humorous setups, characters, dialogue, jokes or anything.  It’s not like the movie is trying to be funny and I just don’t think it is.  No, comedy is barely attempted at all which is so fucking bizarre.

I really wouldn’t recommend watching this.  It’s so flat, stiff and even sorta unpleasant to sit through.  Nothing works very well.  It feels like Stanley is being forced through the entire occasion, like George in the ’91 remake, but the difference is George realized incrementally how silly and insensitive he was being.  He grew emotionally from the experience.  All the way through to the end Stanley comes across like the wedding is a total annoyance and that he can’t wait for the whole thing to be over and done with.  You get the vibe that it wasn’t really worth it to Stanley and that’s sad.

Wow, so much is the same yet so much is different.  Totally nuts guys.

Father of the Bride (1991)

As a general rule I don’t like to talk about comedies here.  Humor is very specific and I don’t know how to tell you something is funny.  You can get into the mechanics of it, of why a joke or situation or whatever may work on a technical level, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll find it amusing.  I think unintentional comedy, like Miami Connection or the many glorious moments in The Specialist (which curiously also happens to take place in Miami), is something you can get more people behind.  Intentional comedy on the other hand is really hard to review.  But I’m making an exception in this case as I go through the Father of the Bride series.  Don’t worry, I won’t get too into trying to sell you on the funny and instead look much more at why these movies work or don’t work otherwise.  Yes, this’ll get a little sappy but I know most of you out there are really softies at heart, even if you don’t want to admit it.  Alright, let’s ring those goddamn wedding bells.

First up is the 1991 remake of Father of the Bride.  Timeline-wise this is actually the third film on the list (fourth overall if you count the short lived TV series from the early 60’s) but it’s the one that everyone knows so I want to use it as a measuring stick to compare the others to.

The plot is very simple.  George Banks’ (Steve Martin (Dirty Rotten Scoundrels)) daughter Annie (Kimberly Williams-Paisley (According to Jim)) comes back from studying for her masters in architecture in Rome and she’s suddenly engaged.  George and his wife Nina (Diane Keaton (The Godfathers)) have to accept the situation and then go on a slightly wacky journey helping to plan and execute the wedding.

As you can guess from the title the film really is about the father.  Telling the entire story from George’s perspective and having the audience sit through his particular emotional roller coaster ride is probably not the first thing you would think of when writing a wedding comedy.  You’d more likely show everyone’s views equally or maybe try to get inside the mind of the bride to be.  But not here and that makes for a much more interesting take on the subject matter.  There’s this journeyman vibe to the father figure in that this is the next chapter in George’s life.  It’s an unexpected one too because Annie not only leaves for Rome single and comes back four months later with a fiancé, but also because even though George has been through his own wedding he seems to be more lost than his own daughter at how to navigate the path.  George still sees Annie as a little kid, something you hear a lot in both movies and real life, so that’s a big part why he has trouble and why it was a good choice to see this story though his eyes.  His relationship with his daughter is more complicated than his daughter’s relationship with him and therefore you have more emotional places you can explore.

The casting is perfect.  Steve Martin does a pretty exceptional job playing the confused and conflicted father.  Diane Keaton tamps her notorious quirkiness down to the point of being virtually nonexistent.  The two play off each other great and actually seem like they could be married.  That’s a very unusual occurrence when you have two big celebrities like that.

Kimberly Williams (no Paisley at the time) also does a nice job as a strong well grounded if somewhat bland daughter.  I’m sure they didn’t want to fill out her character too much because the focus is supposed to be on George.  George Newbern (Scandal) is Bryan MacKenzie, the guy that Annie’s gonna marry.  The filmmakers tried their hardest to make this dude likeable and, at least for me, they succeeded.  Shit, like George Banks I can’t really find anything wrong with him.  Newbern manages to play it a bit nervous but also sure of himself without being cocky in the slightest.  The character is a little stiff but that’s alright because it goes with the 1950’s layer the filmmakers baked in (more on that in a minute).  Also, the fact that Bryan’s supposed to be a computer genius and he’s not portrayed as a total nerd with big glasses, a pocket protector and zero social skills is fucking remarkable for 1991.  This movie is uncharacteristically respectful towards someone with great computer/IT knowledge both in the 90’s and now.

Kieran Culkin (Nowhere to Run) is Matty, Annie’s little brother.  This character may seem inconsequential in the movie but I think he serves an important function.  He’s there to remind George and Nina (as well as the audience) that even though they might be “losing” Annie through marriage they’re not left completely deserted.  They still have their nine year old son to take care of and that’s huge.  Their lives won’t abruptly become sad and lonely when Annie moves out.  He’s the next chapter waiting in the wings (at least he’s supposed to be, the sequel has different plans).

Finally there’s Franck (pronounced Fr-onk, like “honk”) Eggelhoffer, the wedding coordinator.  This character, and probably Martin Short (Captain Ron) in general, is pretty much love him or hate him.  Either you’re gonna find the extremely exaggerated eastern European accent and gregariously flamboyant approach funny or the most irritating thing on the fucking planet.  I think the character’s funny and I’ll leave it at that.

The look of the film holds up shockingly well.  If it weren’t for most of the outfits and haircuts this thing could’ve been shot yesterday.  It has a timeless feel and a big part of that is they avoid most technology throughout.  No cell phones, no computers, there isn’t even a shot of someone watching an old CRT TV (although sharp eyed viewers can spot one in the background with an NES sitting on top).  I’m sure this was all totally accidental but it’s quite amazing nonetheless.   

Let’s discuss the math of some of the shit in the picture.  Annie is 22 and says that’s a year older than when Nina married George.  This means Annie was born in 1969 and George and Nina were married in 1968.  However, when George digs out his old tux he mentions he bought it in 1975.  I’m assuming he means he bought the tux for his own wedding in 1975 but that doesn’t add up with the earlier conversation.  Maybe George and Nina were legally married in 1968 but didn’t have the ceremony until 7 years later.  Or maybe George bought a tux in ’75 for some other event rendering this last paragraph pointless.  I’ll let you decide for yourself.

Annie and Bryan met in Rome while Annie spent four months there.  Let’s say for the sake of argument that they met right at the beginning of that time frame.  When they get back home they get married six months later.  So at most Annie and Bryan have known each other for ten months when they marry.  To me that’s not a very long period of time.  But again, I’ll let you decide for yourself.

Ok, I should really start wrapping this up.  This is one helluva cohesive film and a major reason for that is everything was planned meticulously.  I mean during the wedding ceremony the filmmakers said there was a strict dress code for all the extras and that for the reception scenes even the fucking napkins were deliberated over.  They planned not only a fake wedding but an entire film as if they were throwing a real damn wedding.

There are so many little things too that get brought up casually and come back around again later.  Like Annie mentions she and Bryan want to go for a drive around town and maybe grab a cappuccino.  Later George gifts his daughter a cappuccino maker.  Bryan’s mother tells Nina that her son’s Danish is better than hers.  When Bryan shows up half way through the next scene and is thanked for bringing a bottle of wine to dinner he says “you’re welcome” in Danish.  While George is at work one day a slimy salesman is there pushing knock off designer bags and such to the workers.  When George tears his ’75 tux and needs a new one he buys it from this sales guy later in the movie.  It’s all shit you probably didn’t notice but it’s this kinda detail that makes the film as strong as it is.

If you couldn’t tell, I love this picture.  Yes, I think it’s funny but besides that it’s a touching portrait of a father coping with his daughter falling in love with another man and being taken care of by him.  It was George’s (and Nina’s) job to look after, support and love her.  But now he has to share all of that with someone else, a stranger.    

The thing is George eventually accepts that this is life.  The pattern that gets repeated is George flips out over [insert any event that occurs in the film here], he embarrasses himself because he’s initially unreasonable, Nina talks some sense into him, he finally learns his lesson and lets it go.  It’s important that George goes through that last step otherwise you get something very different (stay tuned).

This is a Norman Rockwell type movie with a rich white family who live in a big gorgeous Southern California house with the white picket fence and the daughter meets the perfect guy to marry and they have a flawless wedding and blah blah blah.  Director Charles Shyer (along with then wife/co-writer/producer/director Nancy Meyers) used that 50’s atmosphere and the fact that fathers always have and will be apprehensive over their daughters getting married as a starting point.  But they modernized it slightly.  They definitely threw in some cartoonish exaggerations (the bank book fiasco, Franck, having three foot tall Matty and his friend park the wedding guests’ cars) to help bring in some of those updates and also to accent the comedy.  But even though this is an extremely corny film on paper it doesn’t come across that way while you’re watching it.  The movie is very genuine and relatable.  I’m not a father or married but through the picture I was able to understand why George acts the way he does and why this is such a crazy event for parents to go through.

So if you haven’t seen it yet you probably should.  All the non-comedy stuff works just as well.  It’s goddamn heartwarming in my opinion.

Death Warrant

You can’t go into this thinking it’s an action movie.  There are certainly times when it wants to be, especially the ending where Van Damme goes toe to toe with one of the main villains in a prison boiler room and there are dozens of inmates gathered round cheering on Van Damme’s supposed demise in a frenzy.  But I assure you, this is a thriller/mystery more than anything else.

Really I don’t have a whole lot to say about this one but I do want to make a few points.  First, the plot is a good one involving Van Damme going undercover in jail to find out who’s been killing off the prisoners one by one.  He isn’t subtle about being a cop either.  On his first couple of days he goes so far out of his way to make friends with one particular guy (Robert Guillaume (Rafiki from The Lion King)) that he thinks can be an ally on his mission (of course he turns out to be right).  Van Damme also meets a lot of people very quickly and asks them all really suspicious questions.  I get that the filmmakers moved the investigation along for the sake of the movie but it makes all the prisoners look pretty stupid.  Anyway, we eventually find out that the prison is harvesting the inmates’ organs to sell them on the black market which I have to admit I did not see coming.  That’s kind of a crazy twist and I like it.

Second, this thing looks and feels sorta cheap.  It tends to ride the border between A and B picture shuffling back and forth depending on the scene.  The reason I bring this up is because two of Van Damme’s previous films, Bloodsport and Kickboxer, both look better than this one in my opinion.  Death Warrant feels like a step back in terms of production and that was a little surprising considering his career was heating up at the time.

Third, this was written by David Goyer.  Yea, the same guy who wrote Dark City, Blade and essentially all the Nolan Batmans.  The man has good story ideas.

Fourth, this is not an action movie.

This one’s pretty lackluster and was made in the same year (1990) as arguably Van Damme’s best picture, Lionheart.  The contrast is pretty amazing between the two actually.  In Death Warrant he plays a hero cop, the film mostly takes place in one location, there are really only two fight sequences to speak of and while the story isn’t anything original (Michael Crichton’s Coma is at least one other movie about organ trafficking that came out before this) it’s one you don’t come across very often.  In Lionheart Van Damme is a French Foreign Legion deserter, the settings range from Africa to a ship bound for NY to the Big Apple itself to LA, there are a lot of fights (it’s an underground fight club movie after all) and the story had already been done many times before including twice previously by Van Damme himself.

Death Warrant (formerly known as Dusted by the way, neither title makes a lot of sense) is definitely nonessential to include in your action or Van Damme repertoire.  It just doesn’t succeed at being a great mystery movie.  The investigation unfolds too slowly to build enough suspense and then suddenly speeds up because we’re nearing the end of the picture and shit needs to be revealed and wrapped up.  Van Damme feels out of place and the couple of fight scenes the filmmakers obviously shoehorned in when he signed on have nothing to do with the main plot.  They easily could’ve been omitted and it wouldn’t have affected the story whatsoever.

Interestingly Van Damme would make another black market organ film with Pound of Flesh in 2015.  I wanna say I liked that better but honestly I’m not sure. 

Sorry Death Warrant but I’m gonna have to put a warrant out for your…arrest?