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Neville
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
Spain
1590 Posts |
 Posted - 04/21/2006 : 5:08:06 PM
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And although I often disagree with Ken Begg's views (I even told him months ago in this board that he was being too hard on Frankenheimer), his reviews of these particular movies are dead on.
Prophecy, an environmentalist horror film, is the best of the two. It is amazingly inept, but that at least makes it occasionally funny in a goofy kind of way (the monster attack on the vacacioning family had me laughing hard, and wishing Ken had added a clip of the scene like other bad movie websites do). Despite this, the film can get on people's nerves esily, as the pro-environmentalist message is way too obvious.
And bad as this movie is, I would like to speak in favour of Frankenheimer, because although he made some really great movies in his prime (and some quite good movies in his last days) he never made a decent fantasy / horror movie. Clearly this genre wasn't his forte, and the fact that the only remarkable fantastic film he ever made, Seconds, relies more in thriller conventions than horror ones only seems to reinforce this.
I won't be that kind with The Holcroft Covenant. If there's one genre Frankenheimer knew well, that was thrillers, and this one sucks. Big time, so he has no excuse. It has a couple of half-decent action scenes, one assasination attempt at a ferry and a chase through Berlin at night, but the plot fails to keep any interest alive, acting is uninspired and the pace... Ugh. Frankenheimer has his good films and his bad films, but he never made anything as boring as this.
And the ending is every bit as ridiculous as Ken said. Never in my entire life I've wanted two hours back so much than after watching this film. And I paid to watch Van Damme's Knock Off. Twice. |
Edited by - Neville on 04/21/2006 5:11:15 PM
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flellis
Archdeacon of Jabootu
USA
17 Posts |
Posted - 04/25/2006 : 6:36:49 PM
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Because I'm a huge fan of the original Manchurian Candidate, I would be inclined to support Neville's views that Ken Begg is too hard on Frankenheimer. However, Frankenheimer has made a great deal of crap that at times, I wonder if Ken is being fair here.
I have not seen Holcroft Convenant, so I cannot comment. But I do wonder how the director of Manchurian Candidate made the crappy thriller Reindeer Games. So, even Frankenheimer can err on his usual forte, thriller.
As for Prophecy, Frankenheimer is just tone deaf on the subject of horror. All the monster attacks scene are not scary in the least but laughably bad(See Dr. Moreau to get an idea of his lack of quality on fantasy/horror. As a matter of fact, Frankenheimer was working on the prequel to Exorcist when he died. Although I was sad he died, we can thank the Movie Gods for not witnessing his attempt at it. Granted, the prequel was no great shakes under Schrader/Harlin, but I guarantee Frankenheimer would have made it much worse.) If Prophecy didn't hit you over the with its pro-environment message and just concentrated on its monster attacks, you would think its a silly B movie and no more. But with its pro-environment message, its bleeding heart protagonist whose wife is afraid to tell him she's pregnant because he would want to abort it cause its a hellish world out there, its patronizing look at the Indians (with an Italian playing a non-convincing one), the movie comes off much worse and deserves the ultimate trashing on Jabootu. (Although it should be mentioned, Frankenheimer did a decent job on social issues when he directed the TNT miniseries on George Wallace, starring Gary Sinise.)
A big mystery on Prophecy is that it was written by David Seltzer, who authored the Omen, a horror classic. The question here is did Seltzer try something here and it just didn't work out, compounded by Frankenheimer's ineptness at horror. Or did Seltzer, like Frankenheimer, really believe, he was making more than a horror film? Well, Seltzer claims he did the Omen strictly for the money. (I guess he must be doing the Omen remake for the same reason.) Given this info, my guess is like Frankenheimer, Seltzer deluded himself into thinking that this would be a horror film that would educate people.
--flellis(aka Prago) |
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Neville
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
Spain
1590 Posts |
Posted - 04/26/2006 : 04:11:15 AM
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| I'm also a huge Frankenheimer fan, but after watching these two films I don't blame anymore Ken for being too hard on him. They're every bit as bad as he says, specially "The Holcroft Covenant". Anyway, we Frankenheimer fans can always look at the bright side of his career. He has enough good films to drool over. The train is a personal favourite of mine. |
Edited by - Neville on 04/26/2006 04:11:53 AM |
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Ken HPoJ
Supreme Potentate
USA
1530 Posts |
Posted - 04/26/2006 : 08:26:30 AM
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What makes Frankenheimer so fascinating is that he's directed outright brilliant films and some of the worst stuff out there. He's got both ends of the bell curve covered, as does, say, Richard Burton as an actor.
However, he really deserves his beatings because (again, as with his good and great films) his fingerprints are all over his bad movies. You can't really put, for example, Battlefield Earth on Richard Christian--although he deserves his brickbats--but Holcroft and Prophecy are all Frankenheimer, baby.
PEGGY: I don't see how having a girl on the team would ruin it. Did a woman judge ruin the Supreme Court?
HANK: Yes, and that woman's name was Earl Warren.
--King of the Hill |
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Neville
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
Spain
1590 Posts |
Posted - 04/26/2006 : 09:24:10 AM
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That's true, although The island of Dr. Moreau, which is one of his most hated movies, makes a more difficult case. Since Frankenheimer was hired in the last moment, you can't say which problems of the film are his fault, which came out of the blue (the casting seems to be one of those) or which can be blamed on Richard Stanley, the former director.
And another thing that makes this director interesting is that on the case of many veteran filmakers (take Sidney Lumet, Allan J. Pakula or Arthur Penn), you can tell that if they have any bad movies they are on the last part of their careers. Frankenheimer was far less predictable. Ronin is one of his best efforts, and came just right between The island... and Reindeer Games. Even his late TV work ranged from awful (The year of the gun seems to be one of those) to good (Against the wall) or even great (the Andersonville mini). |
Edited by - Neville on 04/26/2006 09:34:58 AM |
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flellis
Archdeacon of Jabootu
USA
17 Posts |
Posted - 04/27/2006 : 2:14:09 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by Neville
That's true, although The island of Dr. Moreau, which is one of his most hated movies, makes a more difficult case. Since Frankenheimer was hired in the last moment, you can't say which problems of the film are his fault, which came out of the blue (the casting seems to be one of those) or which can be blamed on Richard Stanley
Richard Stanley was kicked off the project and was rewritten. Somewhere on the net (I don't have the exact website, you have to google it), he has a long story of what happened on the film and how it became something much different. Ron Perelman backs him up on this. So, given that he didn't have the final say on this, I'm leaving him out of this mess (similar case with screenwriter William Goodhart on Exorcist II). True, there are certain moments, that are pure Brando. It was purely his idea to team up with that midget sidekick. However, it's clear where Frankenheimer is involved. Just compared the scenes with the animals with Prophecy's scenes with the monster. They're extremely badly directed and what is supposed to be suspenseful and/or shocking just comes off laughable. This is what I mean by Frankehimer's tone deafness with horror. It's interesting that his last film was supposed to be the Exorcist prequel. Same story, same lead, but watching both films back to back, you can tell who's directing by just watching a few minutes of either version. Scharder and Harlin, at their worst, cannot direct horror badly as Frankenheimer does and that's why I'm sure his version would be much worse than whatever Scharder and Harlin came up with.
Not to mention, Frankenheimer has a director's cut of the movie which is widely released. I haven't seen the cut but I haven't heard anyone say this was such a great and/or different film till the studio got their hands on it. (Likewise, there's also a director's cut of Reindeer Games. Again, I haven't seen it and again, I haven't heard anyone say that the film was a victim of studio interference.)
After thinking about this a little more, I'm going to hold screenwriter David Seltzer equally responsible with Frankenheimer for Prophecy. Seltzer mentioned he lived in Maine (and still does) when being interviewed about his rewrite of Willy Wonka and the Cholocate Factory. That's where Prophecy takes place. Also, Seltzer wrote six weeks where Dudley Moore is the protagonist, who is a politican running for Congress in California. Moore's politics are very liberal. Taking those factors into account, it's not hard to see how Seltzer has placed his fingerprints on Prophecy.
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And another thing that makes this director interesting is that on the case of many veteran filmakers (take Sidney Lumet, Allan J. Pakula or Arthur Penn), you can tell that if they have any bad movies they are on the last part of their careers. Frankenheimer was far less predictable. Ronin is one of his best efforts, and came just right between The island... and Reindeer Games. Even his late TV work ranged from awful (The year of the gun seems to be one of those) to good (Against the wall) or even great (the Andersonville mini).
Yes, Ronin is a better work, but then you had David Mamet, who has a much more consistent track record than Frankenheimer, writing. Likewise, Manchurian Candidate, came from a good book to begin with. Come to think of it, I think Frankenheimer is constrained by the quality of the script. If the script isn't working out, he can't wing it. The whole quality of the production comes crashing down. Even direction of actors seem off here. (Notice, Gary Sinise and Clarence Williams III give much worse performances in Reindeer Games than they did in the very good George Wallace.)
The one director who matches Frankenheimer for uneveness at every stage of his career is our most recent lifetime acheivment award winner Robert Altman. Think about it. Altman started off the 70s with Mash and McCabe & Mrs. Miller. He ended the 70s and started the 80s with Quintet and Popeye (which guaranteed that Altman would never work on a studio film again.) One might have thought this would be the end for him. But he came back in the early 90s with The Player and Short Cuts. He immediately followed it with Ready to Wear (which may be his worst and given the quality of some of his worst films, that's really saying something.) He arrived in 2001 with Gosford Park. I didn't like it, but it was Oscar nominated, so I'll leave it alone. However, Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin, when presenting the award for Altman, gave us a little sample of their Prairie Home Companion characters and from that sample, it looks like it may be one of his losers. And forget about leaving his fingerprints on the films, these films, good and bad, are his babies (or sand castles, as he refer to it in his Oscar acceptance speech) 100% all the way. |
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Neville
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
Spain
1590 Posts |
Posted - 04/27/2006 : 3:44:10 PM
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I agree with most of the things you say, except with Ronin being more difficult to misfire because of the script. To start with, Mamet's involvement with the whole thing is likely to have been exagerated. Note that he doesn't even sign the script and uses a pseudonym instead, something he never did even with his worse scripts, like Hoffa.
And I also think that despite the script being pretty good, it would have failed miserably if not for Frankenheimer's involvement. I mean, who else would have extracted suspense so well of scenes like the final confrontation between Stellan Skarsgard and Michael Lonsdale or the moment when one of the villains, just for fun, aims his weapon towards a child? Not to mention the almost CGI free car chases. To quote Amazon's editorial review of the film:
"The story is largely unremarkable [...] but legendary filmmaker John Frankenheimer [...] leaps at the material, bringing to it an honest tension and seasoned, breathtaking skill with precision-action direction. The centerpiece of the movie is an honest-to-God car chase that is the real thing: not the how-can-we-top-the-last-stunt cartoon nonsense of Richard Donner (Lethal Weapon), but a pulse-quickening, kinetic dance of superb montage and timing [...]".
Rather than being too dependant on scripts, I'd say he took almost anything he was offered, and although in some of them he actually wanted to do them, in others he just sleepwalked and cashed in the cheque. Watching any of his movies, you can really tell when he doesn't give a damn, or when, even with a cardboard script, he's using nails and teeth to make it work.
I do agree, however, in that he was a poor actors' director. With the exception of his early movies, where he could work with people like Burt Lancaster, most of his casts are a mixed bag, and even regulars like Clarence William III are great once (52 Pick up) and horrible the next time (Against the wall). How this man could extract a real performance out of Don Johnson in Dead Bang will always be a mistery to me. |
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BradH812
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
1294 Posts |
Posted - 04/27/2006 : 6:39:01 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by Neville
I agree with most of the things you say, except with Ronin being more difficult to misfire because of the script. To start with, Mamet's involvement with the whole thing is likely to have been exagerated. Note that he doesn't even sign the script and uses a pseudonym instead, something he never did even with his worse scripts, like Hoffa.
Just For The Record.... From what I've read, Mamet actually wrote the lion's share of Ronin. He asked the Writer's Guild to give him top credit for the screenplay (and Frankenheimer agreed with him), and they refused, so he had his name taken off the credits. And there are some flourishes here and there that tell you, yes, this is a David Mamet script.
Would that Mamet and Frankenheimer got together earlier, or more often. |
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Neville
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
Spain
1590 Posts |
Posted - 04/28/2006 : 06:49:01 AM
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| Thanks for the heads up, BradH812. Just checked the IMDB and in the trivia section it explains more or less the same. |
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flellis
Archdeacon of Jabootu
USA
17 Posts |
Posted - 04/28/2006 : 10:17:08 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by Neville
And I also think that despite the script being pretty good, it would have failed miserably if not for Frankenheimer's involvement. I mean, who else would have extracted suspense so well of scenes like the final confrontation between Stellan Skarsgard and Michael Lonsdale or the moment when one of the villains, just for fun, aims his weapon towards a child? Not to mention the almost CGI free car chases.
First off, thanks to Brad for clearing up the Mamet information and don't get me wrong, Neville when Frankenheimer excels, he does excel. And yes, the film was a good deal his, even more so than Mamet. And speaking of CGI-free chases, how about the final foot chase between Gene Hackman and Fernando Rey in French Connection II?
It's just that Frankehemier does such a fine job in suspense and action, that it's a bit startling he doesn't put that same energy into chase scenes when the film is inferior. There were many problems with Reindeer Games, but we still might have been able to get a decent chase scene or suspense scene. Likewise, I haven't seen Holcroft Covenant, but still Frankenheimer could've pull a cool chase scene here (which I haven't heard you or Ken mention there is) or there even if the script stunk.
Take William Friedkin, for example. Jade is a pure Joe Eszterhas creation. Friedkin goes for the flow, probably realizing this film is a loser. Yet, when they have some chase scenes, Friedkin puts his foot on the pedal and tries to give the film some energy there. I just wonder why Frankenheimer didn't do the same.
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Rather than being too dependant on scripts, I'd say he took almost anything he was offered, and although in some of them he actually wanted to do them, in others he just sleepwalked and cashed in the cheque. Watching any of his movies, you can really tell when he doesn't give a damn, or when, even with a cardboard script, he's using nails and teeth to make it work.
Neville, what are names of the movies with a cardboard script, where he's using nails and teeth to make it work? Cause I like to see them. It would help correct my perception of Frankenheimer.
--flellis (aka prago) |
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Neville
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
Spain
1590 Posts |
Posted - 04/28/2006 : 12:29:24 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by flellis
Neville, what are names of the movies with a cardboard script, where he's using nails and teeth to make it work? Cause I like to see them. It would help correct my perception of Frankenheimer.
--flellis (aka prago)
Take it as it is, an extremely subjective POV:
Black Sunday (1977)
Dead Bang (1989)
The fourth war (1990)
And, to some extent, Reindeer Games (2000)
As I see it, these movies have barebone scripts, but he does his best to make them work, usually by turning as many scenes as possible into character development, a technique he seemed very fond of, or simply by creating strong action sequences, such as the raid that opens Black Sunday or the prison riot and casino robbery sections in Reindeer games. |
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