Movies I Watched in February, Part 2

Hey, look at that! Another installment already! If you didn't know better, you'd think I had to hurry this up and get out of town this weekend or something...

Spoilers ahead, so beware…
I still remember the genuine (albeit geeky) tingle that went up my spine when M. Night Shyamalan’s “Split” ended with a glimpse of Bruce Willis, (a) revealing that it was actually a stealth sequel to “Unbreakable” and (b) hinting that a sequel might be in the works. Well now that sequel has arrived in the form of “Glass,” and my reaction this time around isn’t so much a geeky tingle as a somewhat amused, some confused smile at the way Shyamalan managed to deliver a super-hero epic that turned out to be anything but epic. For one thing, it's the talkiest super-hero ever made, with our three main characters – Willis’ heroic David Dunn, James McAvoy’s multi-minded Beast and Samuel L. Jackson’s Mr. Glass – yakking endlessly with psychiatrist Sarah Paulson, whether in their cells, in a group setting or when they’re outside, seemingly on the edge of an epic battle but falling back into endless, repetitive conversation. I’m not against talky movies, but Shyamalan, for all his other strengths, simply cannot write dialogue that sounds the least bit convincing, which is exactly what is needed in this film. That being said, I did love how Shyamalan deliberately (even cruelly) frustrates audience expectations. From almost the first frame of the movie, we learn that the tallest building in Philadelphia is having a grand opening soon, with plenty of  bigwigs and higher-ups in attendance. This is mentioned repeatedly, and eventually Mr. Glass and the Beast announce their plans to attack this event, teasing what’s bound to be a colossal, spectacular, super-powered conclusion to the movie. When the three men escape the hospital, we can actually see the building off in the distance, seemingly indicating that the battle is imminent. And then, instead, the entire fight takes place in a parking lot and our hero dies by drowning in (no kidding) a flooded pothole. Now that’s a twist ending! (There’s also another, larger (and goofier) twist that I won’t reveal here.) One more thing: It was really nice to see Spencer Treat Clark, who we last saw David Dunn’s young son in 2000’s “Unbreakable,” return in the same role, this time as a grown man. I would’ve liked to have seen more of the low-budget super-hero operation he and his dad had developed. A lot more.   

You’ve probably seen the black-and-white clip of BetteDavis, drunk to the gills, driving madly with an Oscar statue on her dashboard. Well, this is the movie that clip is from. Davis (two years after starring in 1950’s “All About Eve”) plays an aging actress struggling to find work. After hanging around outside an auction of her possessions and reassuring her teen daughter (Natalie Wood!) that she’s not a has been, she reunites with Sterling Hayden, a former actor she once gave a big break to. He’s quit showbiz and seems happy in his blue-collar life, and they fall in love. But when Davis gets a shot at a dowdy role in a new movie, she sexes herself up (well, relatively speaking) and tries instead to land the role of the ingenue, embarrassing herself and blowing her big shot. Will she return to young, hunky supportive Hayden? (What do you think?) “The Star” isn’t a bad movie, not exactly, and Davis definitely gives it her all, but it’s telling that two years after the release of THE classic movie about an aging actress, “Sunset Blvd.” that Hollywood still wasn’t able to portray itself in any sort of negative light. Everything here is blamed on Davis' character, who’s portrayed as delusional at best and insane at worst for trying to go against the rigid concepts of casting, then is forced to retreat to a life of domesticity. At least Norma Desmond got to kill someone at the end of her movie.

Speaking of Sterling Hayden, he had a good year in 1950, too, taking center stage in John Huston’s classic heist-gone-wrong story. It’s a wildly entertaining movie that you should absolutely watch, so I won’t spoil any of the fun here (except, I guess, to reveal that the heist goes wrong somehow). "The Asphalt Jungle" ticks by like a Swiss watch, and it has a cast that includes Sam Jaffe (Gunga Din himself!), Louis Calhern (Trentino from “Duck Soup”!) and in a small but memorable role, none other than Marilyn Monroe. The whole film boasts a compelling sense of desperation and doom, with the claustrophobia building in intensity once the jewels have been stolen and the dragnet tightens. Six years later, Hayden would be part of another heist in Stanley Kubrick’s “The Killing,”  and, spoiler alert, things wouldn’t go much better for him that time, either.