A Knight's Tale (2001)

Director: Brian Hegeland                                       Writer: Brian Hegeland
Film Score: Carter Burwell                                    Cinematography: Richard Greatrex
Starring: Heath Ledger, Mark Addy, Rufus Sewell and Shannyn Sossamon

I don’t really do the whole, “I walked out of this after thirty minutes” thing, and then trash the film . . . but I really wanted to. I started watching because I really like Heath Ledger, and even a mediocre medieval tale of knights can be pretty good, so I though A Knight's Tale had potential. But then the title sequence began with a crowd at a joust clapping and stomping along to Queen’s “We Will Rock You,” and my jaw dropped. It wasn’t just the music, the whole thing was full of anachronisms. A woman dancing in a modern way, kids with face paint and big, bare-chested guys like something from a pro football game. Just a bad opening? I had hopes, but then the prince began to sing along. Oh, no. And yet I was still willing to give it a chance. But when War’s “Low Rider” came on during their practice session, I immediately turned it off. Eventually, however, I had to go back and finish it, just to make sure, but my first impression was right.

The biggest problem with the film is just how lame the attempt at comedy is. It’s one thing to inject humor into a period piece in a way that is intelligent, full of anachronisms, and yet satisfying in its thorough understanding of how to employ exactly the right type of humor. The quintessential example of this is Shakespeare in Love, which kept faithful to the period, used period dialogue, an appropriate score by Stephen Warbeck, and was an Oscar winning success. Now, the other way to go is Kate and Leopold, where the nobleman is transported to modern times, and the humor evolves from his being literally out of time. But A Knight’s Tale wants it both ways. It wants to be a modern romantic comedy, with seventies music, set in the middle ages. The characters attempt to speak period, but act modern, and when Leger calls the object of his affection a “foxy lady” the only thing it elicits is a cringe.

The story, such as it is, has Heath Ledger filling in for a dead knight in the jousting ring, and then perpetuating his deception to earn money for himself and his two partners, Mark Addy and Alan Tudyk. He falls in love with Shannyn Sossamon, a woman that the Count, Rufus Sewell, also has designs on, and attempts to win her love with his deception. It's the same as many similar stories, including The Princess Bride and Disney's Aladdin. Bad enough, all that, but then they try to crib from Shakespeare in Love by throwing Paul Bettany as Chaucer into the mix as a gambling addict, and instead of the humorous take on a classic author we get a buffoon. Mark Addy, who was brilliant in Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood, is completely wasted here. Carter Burwell’s score is unmemorable, and he really hasn’t been a composer of any importance since the eighties. Director Brian Hegeland’s script is tedious and predictable and ultimately a bore. All of the comedy, we’ve seen before. All of the romance, we’ve seen before. All of the masquerade, we’ve seen before. All of the underdog victory, we’ve seen before. All of which means we don't really need to see A Knight’s Tale.

The Social Network (2010)

Director: David Fincher                                       Writer: Aaron Sorkin
Film Score: Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross             Cinematography: Jeff Cronenweth
Starring: Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield, Justin Timberlake and John Getz

The Social Network is a cold, dark film. Granted, most of the action takes place on the Harvard campus during winter, but the dorm rooms, bar rooms, cafeterias, classrooms, fraternities, lawyer’s offices and deposition rooms are no different. Even when they move to California things don’t get any better. In addition, the story itself is grim, the protagonist is grim, the antagonists are grim, and in the end it only winds up sucking the life out of what most people would find a fascinating premise: how did Facebook get started?

In 2004, Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg developed Facebook after a series of episodes involving a breakup with his girlfriend, and an invitation to design a dating site for a couple of fraternity brothers. With investment from his friend Eduardo Saverin he built the initial site and then became seduced by Sean Parker into moving to California and growing the site as fast as possible. It was an obvious success, but Zuckerberg allowed Parker to maneuver Saverin, and the initial investor, out of the business. The film itself is split between the depositions of lawsuits by Saverin and the fraternity brothers and the backstory told in flashback.

The problem with the film, for me, is that Zuckerberg is antagonistic in every relationship he has--even with his friends. He’s certainly intelligent, but not only doesn’t he speak linearly, he is belligerently obtuse in his literal interpretation of others’ speech. In terms of the script as written by Aaron Sorkin, for which he won the Academy Award that year, it is certainly well done, with lots of quick-paced dialogue but little of the humor for which he is best known. Unfortunately it’s just not enjoyable to watch, as Zuckerberg alienates everyone including his friends and his lawyers.

David Fincher, who did an amazing job with The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, has far less to do here, as the dialog-heavy story doesn’t really lend itself to interesting camera angles or montage. At times during the flashbacks Zuckerberg almost seems as if he doesn’t understand the implications of his actions, but then the film cuts back to the depositions and it becomes clear that he did. Jesse Eisenberg does a solid job of portraying Zuckerberg, for what that’s worth, but Andrew Garfield is really the only engaging actor on screen. It’s good to see John Getz again, but the rest of the cast is fairly anonymous. I didn’t see the film when it first came out because I had a feeling it would be something like this. I was right. Facebook might be the most popular website ever, but The Social Network doesn’t have a lot to recommend it.

Magnificent Obsession (1954)

Director: Douglas Sirk                                   Writer: Robert Blees
Film Score: Frank Skinner                             Cinematography: Russell Metty
Starring: Jane Wyman, Rock Hudson, Otto Kruger and Agnes Moorehead

Originally my criteria for determining bad films is that they fail to meet expectations somehow so, technically, Magnificent Obsession doesn’t really fit because it was exactly what I thought it would be. But there is still a lot to discuss about it and so I wanted to post anyway. The first of two films in which they would appear in together, the unlikely pairing of Rock Hudson with Jane Wyman never really works. There’s an uncomfortable aspect to his pursuit of her that feels like an undercurrent of ulterior motive that was never going to be exposed. Perhaps it’s because of the very apparent age difference of the stars on screen, or simply because of Hudson’s later homosexual revelation, but it never seems believable.

Then there’s the story. It’s a remake of the 1935 melodrama starring Irene Dunne and Robert Taylor that has a spoiled, rich bachelor who indirectly kills a woman’s husband, blinds her, then falls in love with her, eventually becoming a doctor and curing her. Oddly enough, that’s not the most bothersome part. Also at work in the screenplay is the spiritual law of attraction that has lured so many people into its orbit. The brilliant Otto Kruger tells Hudson that in order to be happy he has to give away everything he has, but anonymously, to people in need. Hudson is not nearly as dubious as he should be and eventually goes along with the scheme, with obvious results. And while Kruger urges him that it will never work if he is simply looking to get something out of it . . . well, that’s the whole point. The “law” of attraction is just spiritual materialism, greed in another guise. And that gives the picture yet another layer of unsettling undercurrent.

The film is shot in typical 50s big-budget color, super saturating everything on screen until it all looks like an airbrushed picture postcard from . . . the 50s. And as melodramatic as the acting and the story are, the film score is even worse. Frank Skinner’s syrupy strings and cloying choir intrude at every possible moment, beating the audience over the head with his baton. Now, I love Skinner’s early work on Universal’s horror films, Sherlock Holmes series, and Hitchcock’s Saboteur, but this is dreck. In addition to Kruger, the great Agnes Moorehead is on hand, but in her role as a nurse and glorified housekeeper she is really wasted. The only bright spot other than Kruger is Judy Nugent as the young girl who befriends Wyman, and Barbara Rush in one of her early performances.

In many ways it’s a typical 50s film but the story is just so weak and predictable that it goes nowhere. For me, it's reminiscent of the blandness and unbelievability of Stanley Kramer's first film, Not as a Stranger. Hudson and Wyman’s next film, All That Heaven Allows, is much better both thematically and in it’s recognition of the age difference between the two stars. But Magnificent Obsession is simply too pedestrian to merit much attention. The only Academy Award nomination came for Jane Wyman’s performance. Other than that, the film was ignored, with good reason.