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Showing posts with label Renee Zellweger. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Renee Zellweger. Show all posts

Friday, August 1, 2014

Love and a .45

David Lynch’s Wild at Heart (1990) kick started the trend of stylish road movies during the 1990s. They usually involved a beautiful, young couple in trouble with either the law or criminals or both, driving a vintage muscle car across the vast countryside of the United States, stopping in small towns populated by eccentric characters all scored to an alternative rock soundtrack. While Thelma & Louise (1991) was certainly the most popular example of this genre during that decade, it was only one of many that tried to give their own unique spin, be it the couple that picks up a psychopath on the road a la Kalifornia (1993), or lovers on the run from gangsters in True Romance (1993), or where the antagonists are actually the protagonists as in Natural Born Killers (1994). Then, you have The Doom Generation (1995) and Perdita Durango (1997), two films that represent extreme examples of the road movie genre, pushing the sex and violence to the limits.

Among all of these various movies is one of my favorites, Love and a.45 (1994), a modest independent film, written and directed by C.M. Talkington, that got lost in the shuffle due to its lack of star power and advertising muscle. It is notable for featuring then up-and-coming actors Gil Bellows and Renee Zellweger in early roles as lovers on the run from two vicious debt collectors and a vengeful ex-con. I have a soft spot for Talkington’s film due in large part to Zellweger’s enthusiastic performance and a soundtrack populated with the likes of the Butthole Surfers, The Reverent Horton Heat, The Jesus and Mary Chain, and Mazzy Star among others.

When he’s not knocking over convenience stores to help pay off an engagement ring he bought for his girlfriend Starlene Cheatham (Renee Zellweger), Watty Watts (Gil Bellows) plans for a future with said significant other. However, as the saying goes, the best laid plans of mice and men… The young lovers are soon visited by a whole mess of trouble in the form of Dinosaur Bob (Jeffrey Combs) and Creepy Cody (Jace Alexander), two well-dressed debt collectors hopped up on high-powered speed. As if this wasn’t bad enough, Watty teams up with Billy Mack Black (Rory Cochrane), a fellow ex-con buddy and speed freak, on a robbery that he hopes will help pay off the money he owes. Predictably, things horribly wrong when someone is killed. Watty and Starlene soon find themselves on the run from Bob and Billy Mack, who has lost what little he had of a mind to drugs.


Watty considers himself something of an artist when it comes to holding up convenience stores and freely quotes from the I-Ching. Gil Bellows certainly plays an attractive protagonist and is good in the role, giving it all he’s got, but at times he’s overshadowed by the likes of Jeffrey Combs and Rory Cochrane’s larger than life characters. Bellows and Zellweger have good chemistry together and make for a believable couple that is crazy for each other. They are young and have their whole lives ahead of them – that is, if Dinosaur Bob, Billy Mack or the law doesn’t get them first.

Starlene is a free spirit in cut-off jean shorts that leave very little to the imagination. All she wants is for Watty to make an honest woman out of her by getting married. At the time she made Love and a .45, Renee Zellweger was a fresh-faced starlet and she dives enthusiastically into her role. She brings a lot of natural charm and charisma to the role so that it is hard not to like Starlene. Love and a .45 is a potent reminder of how the very presence of Zellweger would energize a given scene and how this seems to be lacking from what few films she’s done in recent years.

Rory Cochrane brings an unpredictable energy to Billy Mack Black, amping himself up more and more as the film progresses with him diving deeper into drug addiction. One moment, he is whining about going back to prison and the next, he’s pointing a gun in Watty’s face. Cochrane starts off chewing the scenery when Billy Mack appears on-screen and by the time he shaves off his head and gets a huge tattoo on it, he’s gone so over-the-top, he’s devoured the scenery.


The always watchable Jeffrey Combs steals every scene he’s in as a charismatic speed freak cum debt collector. This is evident in his introductory scene, which sees the actor swagger all over the place, gleefully bouncing off the other actors in snappy verbal repartee. Bob is giving Watty a friendly warning, but it is a taste of things to come when everything goes pear-shaped. Combs looks like he’s having a blast in the role as he gets to play a larger than life baddie who enjoys his job a little too much. He delivers a performance that feels fresh and spontaneous, like anything can happen. There’s a fantastic meeting of charismatic scene-stealers when Bob and Creepy catch up with Billy Mack at a tattoo parlor. It’s a lot of fun to see Combs vamp it up as he questions Billy with the aid of a tattooing needle. Then, all three psychos hit the road together to the strains of “Who Was In My Room Last Night?” by the Butthole Surfers blasting on the soundtrack.

At the time, Love and a .45 was compared rather unfavorably to Quentin Tarantino’s films, but it doesn’t take long to see Wild at Heart’s influence on it with Renee Zellweger channeling Laura Dern’s hopelessly romantic sex kitten and Jeffrey Combs playing an energetic variation of J.E. Freeman’s laconic gangster. Love and a .45 even features a memorable cameo from Lynch alumni Jack Nance. It also features bloody violence scored to a rock ‘n’ roll soundtrack and adopts the same kind of cutesy lovers banter that is scarily similar, but without the square sincerity of Lynch’s film. It is cool to see Peter Fonda and Ann Wedgeworth show up playing Starlene’s parents, or “handicapped suburban hippies” as Watty calls them. Fonda’s presence is obviously meant to evoke Easy Rider (1969), the mack daddy of all road movies. In an amusing moment, they give Watty and Starlene some primo liquid LSD as a wedding present.


Carty Talkington started off playing guitar in two rock bands he had formed and the theater, producing and directing plays for his independent company. He wrote the screenplay for Love and a .45 with the intention of directing it himself, turning down lucrative offers in the range of $100,000 to $200,000 to sell it for someone else to direct. He approached upstart distributor Trimark Pictures and convinced them that he had made other films, but that they had all “burned up in a dorm room fire.” The ploy paid off and Talkington received a budget of just under $2 million.


Renee Zellweger read the script while making Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation (1994) and her co-star Matthew McConaughey was initially being considered to play Watty. She actively pursued the role, which worked out well as going into production, the filmmaker had yet to find someone they liked for the role of Starlene. Gil Bellows felt that Watty was “one true, cool character ‘cause he’s not perfect. You see where he succumbs to his own human weakness and his own temptation. He’s got a sense of humor about life.” Rory Cochrane read the script and liked it, finding “so many interesting characters in it.” To research the role, the actor talked to a prisoner serving 50 years for armed robbery.

While writing the script, Talkington knew how everything would look and worked closely with cinematographer Tom Richmond (Waking the Dead): “I wanted to make a rock ‘n’ roll movie, and I wanted to have some raw feeling in it, some energy, some soul.” A friend of Talkington’s agent saw Love and a .45 and got him a record deal. The record company gave him enough money to get all the music he wanted, like “King of the Road” and “Ring of Fire,” as well as getting The Breeders to record an original song for the film. Unfortunately, the production was marred by tragedy when the man in charge of special effects died when he crashed his car after a late-night shoot. In addition, the set director died of cancer soon after the production wrapped.

Love and a .45 received mostly positive reviews. In her review for The New York Times, Janet Maslin wrote, “Mr. Talkington shows some visual talent and has assembled a head-bangingly effective soundtrack, but he’s short on dramatic inspiration.” The Los Angeles Times’ Kevin Thomas wrote, “Love and a .45 is a comic book, not be taken seriously, yet Talkington’s people are real, well-drawn, even though they’re caricatures. Talkington not only has style but also a terrific way with actors, giving them the confidence to go over the top while having fun doing so.” Finally, in his review for the Austin Chronicle, Marc Savlov wrote, “Really, there’s not a whole lot here we haven’t seen before. Wisely, Talkington keeps the film moving at roughly the speed of Speed, bathing the shots with eerie gels and utilizing various skewed camera angles to keep things interesting.” Jeffrey Combs said of his experience working on the film: “That movie was nothing but a joy for me. I had never done anything like that … It was a wonderful director, and I thought it was quite a good script for the first time out for this guy.”

The problem that road movies sometimes fall into is that the eccentric characters the protagonists encounter tend to be more interesting because they have less screen time to make an impression so the actors tend to give it all they’ve got. This is certainly the case with Love and a .45, which features blistering performances by Cochrane and Combs. When their characters are on-screen, the film really comes to life and this fire ebbs a little when they are absent. While Love and a .45 is certainly indebted to films that came before, it is a fun and entertaining ride with two attractive leads and a cool soundtrack accompanying their misadventures. One doesn’t have to reinvent the wheel every time out. Sometimes, telling an engaging story is enough and C.M. Talkington’s film certainly does that.

SOURCES

Allen, Tom. “Carty Talkington Hits the Mark with Love and a .45.” MovieMaker. November 1, 1994.


Griffin, Dominic. “Road to Nowhere.” Film Threat. February 1995.


Rochon Debbie and Peter Schmideg. “Jeffrey Combs – Acting on the Edge.” Videoscope. Winter 1997.

Friday, December 21, 2012

Bridget Jones's Diary


Before Bridget Jones’s Diary (2001) was released in theaters, much was made of the casting of soft-spoken American (from Texas no less!), Renee Zellweger as the very British Bridget Jones. It was seen as almost heresy by fans of Helen Fielding’s very popular book of the same name. It was a pretty ballsy move on the part of producers Eric Fellner and Tim Bevan of Working Title Films, the British production company responsible for revitalizing (or destroying depending on your point-of-view) the romantic comedy with the massively successful one-two punch of Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994) and Notting Hill (1999).

Bridget Jones would be their most ambitious entry into the genre to date, adapting a wildly popular best-seller and attempting to quell the controversy of casting Zellweger by having her appear alongside Fellner and Bevan’s cinematic good luck charm, Hugh Grant (who had starred in both Four Weddings and Notting Hill) and Colin Firth, best known (at the time) for his role as Mr. Darcy on the British television miniseries adaptation of Pride and Prejudice (1995). To almost everyone’s surprise, Zellweger pulled it off with a credible British accent and a real commitment to the role (she even put on the weight required to play the character). Working Title scored another box office hit and continued their impressive reign as rom-com champs.

Bridget Jones (Renee Zellweger) is a sworn bachelorette. She has her family and friends but despite her defiantly single stance the biological clock is always ticking. She finds herself looking for Mr. Right. She does fancy her roguish boss, Daniel Cleaver (Hugh Grant), but also finds herself strangely drawn to the repressed and distant Mark Darcy (Colin Firth). The film follows Bridget as she must decide who she loves more while also getting her life in order.

Bridget is not some ultra-thin model (or “American stick insect” as she calls the glamorous New York City career girl that Daniel cheats on her with) type but a full-bodied woman who sometimes acts awkward in social situations, including showing up to a party dressed like some kind of Playboy bunny. Bridget is instantly relatable and immediately gets our sympathy. We care about what happens to her and become emotionally invested in her and her world.

Renee Zellweger is willing to put herself out there, successfully embodying this British phenomenon. She is also willing to look silly and poke fun at herself. However, the way she is lit and the warm colors that surround her, highlight Zellweger’s luminescent, beautiful pink skin. Director Sharon Maguire champions her voluptuous physique and doesn’t hide how she looks. There are lingering shots of Bridget getting dressed, which is refreshing in this day and age. Zellweger is Bridget Jones and looking back at the film after all this time, one would be hard pressed to think of anyone else in the role.

After being type cast as the meek nice guy in films like Four Weddings and a Funeral and Notting Hill, Hugh Grant is cast refreshingly against type as a raunchy cad. It gives the actor a chance to poke fun at his own image and it gave his career a much-needed shot in the arm, allowing him to branch out and play more flawed characters, like his wonderful turn in About a Boy (2002).

At the time, Colin Firth was period piece guy. He shot to success as the thinking women’s sex symbol in A&E’s production of Pride and Prejudice and Bridget Jones firmly established him on the contemporary pop culture map. At first, Mark seems like a stuck up, cold fish but over the course of the film his true feelings for Bridget become apparent. Firth has an uncanny ability of conveying repressed, unrequited feelings. It’s all in his eyes, which are very expressive.

The film’s screenplay, co-written by Fielding, Andrew Davies (Pride and Prejudice), and the always reliable Richard Curtis, offers all kinds of astute observations about single life and the pressure society and the media puts on us to find a mate and get married (“It is a truth universally acknowledged that when one part of your life starts going okay, another falls spectacularly to pieces.”). Not to mention, the film is insanely quotable with many, many memorable bits of dialogue (“My mum, a strange creature from the time when pickles on toothpicks were still the height of sophistication.”).

Bridget Jones’s Diary started as a satirical column by Helen Fielding in London’s The Independent newspaper in 1995, which was then compiled into a novel that was published in 1996. However, it wasn’t until word of mouth and the paperback edition being published the next year that sales really took off. It went on to sell four million copies worldwide, 1.5 million in the U.K. alone. Before sales went through the roof, Working Title Films quickly bought the film rights.

Producers Eric Fellner and Tim Bevan asked screenwriter Richard Curtis of Four Weddings and a Funeral and Notting Hill fame to work with Fielding (whom he was also good friends with) on adapting her book. Documentary filmmaker Sharon Maguire, a friend of Fielding’s and the inspiration for Bridget’s best friend Shazza, was hired to direct and connected with the material instantly. “I know this world because it’s mine. I understand first-hand who Bridget is and what it’s like to be in your 30s, successful in your career, and yet wondering why you’re still alone.”

Producers Eric Fellner and Tim Bevan spent two years looking for the right actress to play Bridget Jones and considered the likes of Emily Watson, Kate Winslet and Helena Bonham Carter before deciding on Renee Zellweger, impressed by her comedic abilities. In March 2000, she went to London where the actress lived for two months, working with dialogue expert Barbara Berkery who had previously worked with Gwyneth Paltrow on Sliding Doors (1998) and Shakespeare in Love (1998). Zellweger underwent daily dialogue exercises and spent a lot of time with Berkery going out shopping and sightseeing in London. She said in an interview, “I’m trying to familiarize myself with the culture. I feel a very strong responsibility to make sure she’s as truly British as I can make her.”

In addition, the actress worked at a publishing company (much like her character) and gained weight, putting on 20 lbs. for the role. To gain the weight, she was put on a regime of three meals a day, multiple snacks and no exercise. By the time of the film’s release, the actress had clearly tired of all the talk about her weight gain for the role: “It’s so sad when people focus on being fat because that is not the word I would use at all. I felt voluptuous for the first time in my life.”

Bridget Jones’s Diary received mostly positive reviews from critics with Zellweger often singled out for her performance. Roger Ebert gave the film three-and-a-half out of four stars and praised Zellweger for being, “fully herself and fully Bridget Jones, both at once. A story like this can't work unless we feel unconditional affection for the heroine, and casting Zellweger achieves that.” In his review for The New York Times, Stephen Holden wrote, “Don't expect Bridget Jones's Diary to deliver any searing revelations about the human condition. Even as a do's and don'ts resource about the dating life, the wisdom it dispenses is questionable. What it is is a delicious piece of candy whose amusing package is scrawled with bons mots distantly inspired by Jane Austen.” USA Today gave the film three out of four stars and Susan Wloszczyna also praised Zellweger: “But where the highly likable actress proves most valuable is in making us adore this insecure, clumsy, contradictory creature. She has us at hello, or at least from the opening credits, where she strikes a perfect picture of self-pity.” In his review for The New York Observer, Andrew Sarris felt that the film wasn’t as good as the book but singled out Zellweger: “Ms. Zellweger makes the most of what she’s given and manages to triumph time and again over her pratfalls and public rump displays. In a word, she’s terrific.” The Washington Post’s Stephen Hunter wrote, “Grant is casually fabulous and very amusing, but all power to Firth the actor. He's the compleat Darcy, and he never wavers. There's no sentimentality, no flirtation with the audience, no final moment of pandering to the niceness gods; he's a cold geek all the way through.”

Entertainment Weekly gave the film a “B” rating and Lisa Schwarzbaum wrote, “Hugh Grant is charming too, luxuriating in naughtiness, taking a holiday from his usual floppy, velvet romantic image as Bridget's caddish boss, Daniel Cleaver, with whom the employee embarks on a bound for disaster affair.” In his review for the Los Angeles Times, Kenneth Turan wrote, “There are flat patches, some situations verge on being overdone, you can see the plot twists coming, but with this spirited a performance in the title role, it's hard to protest too much. Bridget Jones' search for inner poise may be doomed, but her film is anything but.” However, in her review for the Village Voice, Amy Taubin wrote, “The film, like the novel, shies away from the uncomfortable truth that both Mr. Wrong and Mr. Right are attracted to Bridget not only for her cushiony body, but because her empty-headedness makes her seem vulnerable and unthreatening. Bridget gets her man, but you should think twice about whether that constitutes a happy ending.” The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw wrote, “So Bridget has to be reimagined as a lovable, infantile clown – but once this leap has been made, Renée Zellweger's impersonation of Bridget is entertaining. She has an excellent English accent, the best since Gwyneth Paltrow's Emma. And her Jake La Motta-ish weight-gain is a thing of joy.”

With the commercial and critical success of Bridget Jones’s Diary, a sequel was inevitable. Fielding had written a follow-up but the problem became how to replicate the magic of the first film and yet make it different enough not to be just a retread of what came before? Everyone’s favorite curvy, clumsy British journalist returned in The Edge of Reason (2004).

Bridget and Mark are still a couple in a happy relationship. However, as she writes in her diary, “What happens after you walk off into the sunset?” It is this nagging question that will cloud her judgment. Daniel Cleaver is now a T.V. personality and as rudely funny as ever. On his show he describes the Sistine Chapel as the “First example in history of poof interior designer gone bonkers.” Trouble arises when working class Bridget feels out of place in Mark’s affluent, upper class world. To make matters worse, she starts to feel pangs of jealousy towards one of Mark’s beautiful co-workers, Rebecca (Jacinda Barrett). Her gorgeous looks and casual familiarity with Mark makes Bridget nervous and jealous. How can she compete with a thinner, smarter, more attractive woman? This leads to issues like marriage and children to raise their ugly heads and cause a rift and ultimately split-up Bridget and Mark.

The big problem with this film becomes apparent early on. In the first film, we were laughing with Bridget. In this one we are now laughing at her. For example, she skydives for her morning T.V. show and lands in a muddy pigpen. The segment ends with a gratuitous shot of her dirty behind. The Edge of Reason also recycles many jokes from the first film. Mark and Daniel get into another knock-down, drag-out fight. The film relies too much on physical humor. Bridget falls off the roof of Mark’s flat. Finally, she falls off a ski lift. See a pattern developing? The film takes a gag and proceeds to beat it into the ground until it isn’t funny anymore.

The chemistry between Zellweger and Firth is still strong. They make a great couple and clearly have a good rapport. Zellweger gamely puts on the pounds again and certainly has a knack for physical and verbal comedy. But the film places too much emphasis on the former and not enough on the latter. However, Hugh Grant is a breath of fresh, smarmy air as the roguish Cleaver. He openly leers at any good-looking woman and casually insults people with his scathing wit. The film only comes to life when he’s on-screen.

Bridget Jones’s Diary is much more than just the quintessential single woman’s survival guide. It is a funny and engaging romantic comedy that champions a more realistic image of women. Bridget Jones is the photo negative of The Sex and the City women. She is not like them, with their perfect shoes and witty repartee. Bridget would be watching that show and not be on it. And this is part of the appeal of the film to the average woman. The Edge of Reason, on the other hand, eventually settles into a comfortable groove, merely a pale imitation of the superior original.



SOURCES

Bowes, Peter. "U.S. Eager for Bridget Jones." BBC News. April 6, 2001.

“Bridget Jones Hits the Silver Screen.” BBC News. April 4, 2001.

"Bridget Jones Star Goes Undercover." BBC News. May 12, 2000.

Bridget Jones’s Diary Production Notes. 2001.

Brooks, Libby. "No, I'm Not Bridget Jones. Not Yet." The Guardian. April 12, 2001.

"How Renee Became Bridget." BBC News. April 4, 2001.

Kennedy, Dana. “A Character Actress Trapped in an Ingenue’s Body.” The New York Times. September 10, 2000.

Lyman, Rick. “Bridget Jones, Child of the 80’s.” The New York Times. April 13, 2001.

“Renee Wins Bridget Role.” BBC News. February 24, 2000.


Wood, Gaby. “A Bridget Just Far Enough.” The Observer. March 4, 2001.