The Students of Election

The new episode of Unsung Heroes is up over at The Film Experience. This week it's one of my all time favorites: Alexander Payne's Election. Head over right now and check it out.  And just to start a fight over here - Top three political comedies ever = Election, Dr. Strangelove, In the Loop. Anybody care to challenge me?

Quick Question for The Academy

Excuse me,

can Roger Deakins

finally have

his Oscar now?

Thank you.

8 Vocal Performances Worthy of an Oscar Nomination

Robby Benson in Beauty and the Beast - Benson, along with Paige O'Hara as Belle, created what was probably the two most complex, three-dimensional characters in the history of animated movies up to that point. If I single out Benson it's because he had such a tricky role, and so much of its success rests on his performance. Beast is at times depressed, frustrated, childish, desperate, and falling in love. Add to that he has to believably change over the course of the film from the self-pitying monster of the opening scenes to a person deserving of Belle's love at the end. If he had pulled off such a role under fifty pounds of make-up instead of in a recording booth he just might have taken the Best Actor award from Anthony Hopkins in 1991.

Kathleen Turner in Who Framed Roger Rabbit - Jessica Rabbit has to function as both a spoof of hard-boiled femme fatales and as a character who exists believably inside the story. Kathleen Turner finds just the right balance between the two, turning up the dial just the right amount on her own straight-forward role in Body Heat. Add to that Turner is just flat-out hilarious in the part. It is one of the great comic performances of the 80's, managing the impressive feat of making her voice over work as memorable as the character's attention-grabbing design.

James Gandolfini in Where the Wild Things Are - James Gandolfini has built a career, as well as stocked a bookcase full of awards, out of playing the heavy so he would seem a natural choice to play a monster. Yet when freed from his own bulky frame the role let Gandolfini emphasize his neurotic side, creating a monster that is more vulnerable than intimidating. His "Carol" is the hulking embodiment of childhood neediness and the voice over work let's Gandolfini show sides of himself that type-casting might never have given him the opportunity to play. 

Ellen Degeneres in Finding Nemo - I think a lot of people would agree with me that the character of Dory was largely responsible for pushing Finding Nemo from being just a hit film into being a bona fide blockbuster. The character is unthinkable without Degeneres's performance which somehow manages to be moving while being totally screwball.  When there is a break-out performance like that in a live-action monster money-maker it will usually grab a slot at the Oscars (think Capt. Jack Sparrow). Degeneres had to settle for being briefly mentioned as the darkest of dark horses before being laughed off as an impossibility. Luckily the Annie Awards were around to make sure her achievement did not pass unrecognized.

Peter O'Toole in Ratatouille - The man who holds the record for the most Oscar nominations without a win could have justifiably added one more to his tally with his performance as food critic Anton Ego in Ratatouille. Even if time has stolen his famously delicate appearance, it hasn't yet taken his trademark whip-smart voice and he uses it to fantastic effect here. He makes a suitably threatening villain, but is just as convincing letting that edge soften. O'Toole, with help from the mature, heartfelt script, pretty much creates the definitive take on the snooty critic here, showing both the man with poison pen and the enthusiastic little kid buried underneath.

Douglas Rain in 2001: A Space Odyssey - The thing that amazes me about Rain's work as Hal 9000 is how subtle it is. Check that - it is beyond subtle, it's almost subliminal. Under Kubrick's direction, Rain never breaks from the maddeningly calm, faux-polite tone of Hal's programming --except --- he puts just the smallest, almost imperceptible spin on his lines. That note of fear when his memory is being removed. The tinge of menace when he refuses to open the pod bay doors. It's so slight you wonder if it's really there or if you're just projecting your own emotions on to him. Whatever the case, it's a performance as iconic as any in film history.

Pat Carroll in The Little Mermaid - The animators assigned to Ursula must have been ecstatic when they heard how much her performance gave them to work with. Does Pat Carroll have any lines in The Little Mermaid that she doesn't turn into a classic with her inspired delivery? None spring to mind. 

"Her daddy'll love that."

"One might question your upbringing."

"No more talking, no more singing, zip."

I think a good way to judge the greatness is to look back years later and see how fondly the work is regarded and how fully it has remained in the memory. By that standard is there any work nominated for Best Supporting Actress in 1989 that comes close to Pat Carroll's Ursula? (Hint: Nope) Forget nominations. I would have given her the trophy.

Edward Brophy in Dumbo - Dumbo has long been my favorite animated film, and this is largely due to Edward Brophy's performance as Timothy Q. Mouse. Seeing as Dumbo is a silent character, Brophy carries large portions of the film all by himself, having one-sided conversations, although his performance is so energetic you barely notice. Brophy was a character actor in the 30's and 40's with an extensive filmography including titles such Freaks and The Thin Man but his work as Timothy has made him immortal to generations of children, even if they'll never know him by name. Honestly, I'd have put him in for 1941's Best Supporting Actor based solely on his delivery of the line, "What's the matter with his ears? I don't see nothing wrong with 'em."  Every kid should have a friend like Timothy.

The Hidden Hero of 25th Hour

New column up over at The Film Experience. This week it is an appreciation of master editor Barry Alexander Brown, and the impeccable craft of a Spike Lee's 25th Hour.

Great Shots: Se7en

Does Se7en qualify as a great movie?

The question has been rattling around in my head since I wrote this post last month detailing the hidden formula behind David Fincher's horror landmark. I didn't used to think so. Opening amid a wave of Silence of the Lambs imitators in late '95 (including the aptly named Copycat) Fincher's film stood out from the pack as the best, most well-crafted one of the bunch, but that was about it. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the Hell out of the movie, but I still kept it in its - ahem - box. It was an effective thriller, nothing more.

For one thing the central conceit of a killing for each of the seven deadly sins smacked of high concept story pitching, too gimmicky to be taken seriously. Were we supposed to believe that John Doe went through all those mad clues and contortions, and they just so happened to be the perfect hook for a big budget Hollywood movie? It was great style to be sure, but style in the service of what exactly? 

Yet all these years later, after the other mad killer movies have faded from memory Se7en still lingers. The test of time has proven that those elements which at first felt like contrivances, in the hands of Fincher, the exceptional cast, and especially the brilliant, Oscar nominated cinematographer Darius Khondji, turn out to be something else entirely. Se7en is operatic in its scope, operating above the authentic level of the other police procedurals, and it's on that level the film succeeds wildly. 

Think about it. The film is intentionally non-committal about it's location and time period, so that its urban hellscape can't be limited by the mundane particulars of reality. They have modern technologies but the costume and set decoration deliberately evoke the film noirs of the forties. The story particulars are far too outrageous to be remotely believable. (What if no one ever thought to check behind the painting for invisible messages - to name but one of a thousand possible but totally unimportant questions) John Doe's apartment is not so much a place someone could conceivably live, but is rather the lair of the ultimate movie psychopath, an orgy of art direction with enough creepy props to supply the crazed killers of a dozen other movies (not to mention being roughly four times too big to be in that rundown building. How many rooms are in that place?) Buffalo Bill's basement had its artsy touches too, but it was first and foremost the place a real serial killer like Bill would live, namely, a shit-hole. 

But so what? Se7en worms its way so far into our subconscious because it untethers itself from the concerns of reality and plunges its heroes headlong into the depths of the inferno. Look at that shot above. That's not a shot that has any place in a realistic cop movie. That shot is operating on a biblical scale, setting a stage large enough to make room for the presence of pure evil and taking the final toll only in the sad eyes and defeated voice of Morgan Freeman.

So is Se7en a great movie? Yes. It is.

Lost Masterpiece?

I'm trying to remain calm and rational in the face of the news that production of Paul Thomas Anderson's new film The Master has halted completely. "These things happen," I tell myself. Even though, to my mind, Mr. Anderson is as important a filmmaker as any working today, or yesterday for that matter, that still doesn't mean he has a blank check to do whatever he wants. Look how Orson Welles struggled his whole career. Just be there to support his films when they come out and don't get caught up in the ups and downs of his behind the scenes wheeling and dealing.

Then there is another more melodramatic voice in my head that tells me a catastrophe has just slipped by with barely a blip in our collective radar. Anderson is a world class director at the top of his game, and to have him derailed in his prime makes my imagination run wild with the might-have-beens. I keep substituting titles of past greats to see if I can gauge the possible loss. "Production has stopped on Kubrick's ambitious adaptation of 2001: A Space Odyssey," says actor Douglas Rain. "Oh, well" we would probably write at the time, "I'm sure Kubrick will find another project to work on."

It's best not to to ponder stuff like this for too long.

"Star William H. Macy tells Entertainment Weekly that the Coens troubled production, Fargo, has closed up shop, possibly for good..."

You see what I mean.

The Eisenberg Certainty Principle

Back in July I posted the following on Twitter:

That was just going off the trailer and the unexpected malicious edge I was getting off Eisenberg.

Now with rapturous reviews pouring in from early screenings I'm upgrading this from inkling to full-blown prediction. Everybody stand back, I'm calling it. Eisenberg is going to be a big player in this year's Best Actor race alongside current frontrunners Colin Firth and James Franco.

If you want evidence to support this I could point out how Best Actor is usually strongly tied to Best Picture and Social Network is looking like a leading contender. Or I could repeat the old refrain that roles  get nominated not actors, and Aaron Sorkin has surely written a doozy. But, just to be clear, I'm basing this prediction on absolutely nothing except gut instinct and faith that Mr. Eisenberg can pull off the role in question. He's been doing solid to great work in interesting films for nearly a decade now and I've got a hunch he's going to knock it out of the park, and shut up all those, "I can't tell the difference between him and Michel Cera" folks for good and all.

Tip of the Hat

As if I needed more reasons to love Stephen Colbert, this past Tuesday on The Colbert Report he delivered a full-on performance as Peter Sellers' Dr. Strangelove character, complete with black and white and an unruly evil hand. Here is the full episode if you missed it.

I can't help but wonder how many of Stephen's viewers got the reference and knew the movie well enough to get the riff he was doing on mutually assured destruction. Surely there was a large portion of the audience who thought that Stephen was (as usual) brilliantly improvising, when he was in fact doing a perfect reproduction of Sellers' brilliant improvising.

In any event, a tip of my hat to Stephen Colbert for this inspired and relevant tribute, even if it was greeted with blank stares by a large bloc of viewers. It was clear from Colbert's spot on impersonation that he has an enormous amount of affection for Strangelove.

The Unsung Hero of Rob Roy

The next installment of Unsung Heroes is up over at The Film Experience. This time it's a name that should be known to all film lovers: William Hobbs -- the man responsible for staging one of the most memorable action sequences in film history, the climactic sword fight from Rob Roy.

Great Shots: Pandora's Box

In the previous entries in Great Shots I haven't focused much on actors. Rather, I spend most of the time dissecting the work of cinematographers and directors, analyzing the staging, the lighting or the framing for their meaning and beauty. The star has mostly been one more element in the shot to discuss. With a lot of shots that is completely fair, but there are others that achieve greatness solely for the qualities of the performers they capture. The moment in Casablanca when Rick realizes Ilsa has returned is so well written and produced that it would work with any number of actors in the roles. It is burned on our collective consciousness because it's Bogart's face turning instantly into a mask of pain when faced with the luminous image of Ingrid Bergman.

No amount of filmmaking professionalism can produce that elusive quality, and that kind of electric acting is exactly what Louise Brooks is doing in this shot from G.W. Pabst's Pandora's Box. This shot is Lulu's moment of triumph. The doctor, Lulu's former lover, has been determined to resist Lulu's tawdry charms and marry a proper, respectable girl. By pitching a tantrum and refusing to go on stage to perform, Lulu has lured the good doctor back stage and into her clutches. In the moment above the doctor's fiance has just walked in on them locked in a passionate kiss and all present realize that Lulu's has succeeded in dooming the doctor's attempt to escape. He is hers.

The top talent in the world set the stage for this shot, but in the end they all had to sit back and hand off the whole thing to the little actress with the jet black bob and the penetrating stare. And deliver she does with that unforgettable look of triumph mixed with what? Amusement? Anger? Smug satisfaction? Most actresses can give what the script requires but one in a million can give off that Mona Lisa effect that makes us stare and stare trying to grasp at some elusive quality we can't quite name.

They say Brooks' costars looked down on her because she wasn't a trained actress. But the camera is an equal opportunity instrument and it doesn't care where you studied. Louise blasts her big shot co-stars and just about every one else right off the screen. Many have tried to put into words what Louise Brooks is doing in a shot like this. They say the camera loves her. They call it magic, presence, charisma, or chemistry. Whatever it is its the difference between a solid professional shot and the kind of cinematic immortality that continues to influence those who have never even seen a silent movie.


Previous entries in Great Shots:

A Face in the Crowd
Black Narcissus
Angels in America
There Will Be Blood
The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp
The Royal Tenenbaums


This entry in the Great Shots series was written in coordination with The Film Experience's Hit Me With Your Best Shot series. Click over and check out the other choices from Pandora's Box. Nearly any shot of Brooks is worth checking out.

American Bait and Switch

In an easily predicted development The American's box office grosses took a sharp stumble in its second weekend of wide release dropping nearly 60% from the previous weekend. Clearly this is the result of deadly word-of-mouth spreading the news that the pulse-pounding action thriller promised by the film's trailer was actually a minimalist art-house throw back to the films of Antonioni. "Nothing happens!" was probably a common refrain from the Joe Popcorns across the country tricked into theaters expecting a de facto Bourne movie.

Not so much of this

So, the question is, from the studio's perspective, was it worth it? Was it worth duping the general public into theaters with a trailer that, at best, gently side-stepped the film's glacial pacing and at worst, blatantly misrepresented the film in question? Was it worth having box office drop off a cliff after word quickly spread that is had more in common with Clooney's Solaris than with the Bourne franchise.

A lot more of this

If you look at the grosses the answer is indisputably yes, it was definitely worth it. According to Box Office Mojo, Solaris, which had an ad campaign much more straight forward about the tone and gravity of the material, grossed just under 15 million in its entire run on a comparable number of screens. The American grossed that in its opening weekend and looks set to top off around 40 million. There are obviously a lot of mitigating factors between the two films - Solaris opened in a much more competitive time of year, Clooney is a more established star than he was in '02 - but I don't see how you can argue that the studio would have been lucky to make half of that 40 million with an ad campaign targeting the crowds most likely to be receptive to the movie as it is. And who are we kidding, anyone making such a trailer would've likely been fired on the spot.

They should have made the ads more Matrix-y

There must be a line you can cross where the damage from misleading the public costs the movie more than it makes it, but for the life of me I can't think of an example. Maybe Sweeney Todd would've done better if it didn't tiptoe around the fact that it was wall-to-wall music, but I doubt it. The modest success of The American is only going to encourage more examples of this behavior. Why cross your fingers for an art house hit when you can grab one big weekend? Get Low is currently doing great business on the art house circuit and it will be lucky to top 10 million.

Truthfully, even though I was no fan of The American, if this deception is in the service of getting people to give over cash for movies they would otherwise be too chicken to buy tickets for? Hell, I say go for it.

Singing? Who said anything about singing?

Let The Remake In?

The only thing worse than a crappy remake of a movie you love is a quality remake of a film you love. With a bad remake there is no second version to compete with the original. There were few flops in film history as satisfying as the financial and critical failure of the shot-for-shot Psycho remake. When that ill-conceived project justly tanked we were all spared years and years of "Which one?" in response to mentions of the Hitchcock classic.

Now there is the looming specter of the Let the Right One In remake on the horizon. I am an unabashed, shameless booster of the original which was one of the few bright spots for the horror genre in an otherwise dismal decade. As such, I was determined to give the remake a complete cold shoulder. Totally unnecessary. A cash grab. Screw the mass audiences if they're too narrow-minded or lazy to find their way to the Swedish original. Let them watch their Underworld sequels and good riddance to them.

Early looks at Let Me In didn't dissuade me from that position since it appeared to blatantly ape the look of the original. Remakes need to break down the material and rebuild it from the ground up, using the original only for guideposts, like The Departed or the American version of The Office. What's to be gained from a carbon copy of the original albeit with less subtlety and cranked up scares to appease the incapacitated attention spans of the average multiplex dweller? Phooey.

And I was holding firm on that stance until recently when, I don't know, little twinges of doubt started whispering in my ear not to dismiss this one out of hand, give it a chance. Then I saw that they had cast Richard Jenkins as the vampire's lackey which I don't mind saying is flat-out brilliant casting. Now I'm torn. I still have no desire to have two competing versions of this story clouding my memories when I treasure the single version I currently have, but I'm starting to feel like I need to give Let Me In a fair shake.

I suppose the reviews will tip me one way or the other. I don't know. You tell me. Should I hold firm or am I just being needlessly stubborn?

New Column Announcement!

The first edition of my new column Unsung Heroes is up over at The Film Experience. Head on over and check it out! 

The subject of this episode of Unsung Heroes: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

If you have any ideas for entries in this series let me know in the comments.

Review: The American

It's a testament to George Clooney's charisma that The American is as watchable as it is since for long stretches of Anton Corbijn's film the audience is asked to regard him simply being, doing not much of anything. We are provided with the barest of bare bones introductions to Clooney's Jack, gathering that he is a professional assassin or is at least employed by professional assassins, and that his work has begun to weigh on his soul. We gather that Jack is remorseful not so much because the movie shows us, but because Clooney is inherently likable and we want to think the best of him. After that we simply observe him as he lays low in a tiny Italian town hiding from Swedes bent on killing him for we know not what reasons. The American's technique is to strip the story down to its basic elements, but I fear that in their attempt to trim the fat from the story they have disposed of some essential parts as well.

Director Corbijn and Cinematographer Martin Ruhe have created a wonderfully atmospheric film, lots of twisty mountain roads and dimly lit cobble stone alcoves, but eventually all that style has to be in service of something. Even in storytelling as spare as Melville's Le Samouri, another story of a solitary killer, we were still able to draw conclusions about the main character from his actions, no matter how silent and still he behaved. Not so in The American where about 90% of Clooney's actions are limited to visiting a prostitute, drinking cappuccino and looking over his shoulder for killers.

His encounters with the films supporting cast are mostly limited to Clooney being as taciturn as possible in order to avoid becoming entangled in personal relationships. This can be effective up to a point, but The American crosses that point about thirty minutes in and keeps right on going. We grasp quickly that Clooney's lifestyle has all but eliminated his humanity, but The American keeps repeating variations on the same scene - suspicion and isolation - over and over again, until we're pining for Clooney to just say "Screw it" and send his adversaries an engraved invitation with his name and address so he can just drop the paranoia and settle things already.

We could get by with this minimalist approach if the script spent the rest of the time detailing the life of an assassin. If we can't get to know a character through traditional exposition we can watch him reveal himself through this work, and honestly, who is not fascinated by the how-to of professional killing? Unfortunately, The American skimps on the kind of technical details we look for in a film like this. We get a few scenes of Clooney constructing a specialized rifle but these underwhelm, mostly showing him clicking random metal bits together or going out to a secluded lake to shoot at flowers.

Why do the buyers need such a special weapon? What makes Clooney so uniquely talented? What does he do that a thousands other craftsmen couldn't also do? How do people find him to hire him? What risk does he take by accepting this job? We never get answers to any of these questions. In The Day of Jackal, the gold standard of assassin movies, we were presented with a wealth of fascinating details about the skill set of a master killer. Compare that to The American where the most interesting part of his job we are shown consists of Clooney whacking gun parts with a hammer.

I also regret to report that the action, what there is of it, is pretty lackluster. Corbijn needs to rent some Hitchcock so he can get a better grasp on creating the suspense of a good action scene. Often the audience is never given a clear sense of the geography so that the battle of wits between enemies is lost. More than once it seems like an opponent has Clooney dead to rights and then pow-pow-pow, Clooney drops him and we're left wondering what just happened. The other times when the action is more coherent (the film's climax is pretty clear and there is a decent chase scene involving a Vespa) we still don't know enough about what the protagonist is thinking for his decisions to have much of an impact. The sniper movie Enemy at the Gates was far from a masterpiece, but at least it always gave you a clear understanding of where the key players were in relation to each other, how they got into and out of stand-offs, and what the stakes were to all involved.

Clooney does what he can with the part but there is only so much an actor can create out of 100 minutes of troubled glances. The supporting players' interactions with Clooney are so terse that don't have much opportunity to register as characters. The gorgeous Violante Placido makes the biggest impression as the prostitute who may have a chance at teasing some humanity out of Clooney, but it's hard to buy their relationship when we are asked to believe she's falling for Clooney's character when he's barely sent more than two sentences in her direction in succession. Thekla Reuten (you may remember her as the pregnant hotel owner from In Bruges) has great presence as the women buying the special weapon from Clooney, but she is wasted with little to do other than give off vaguely dangerous vibes, inspiring opportunities for yet more troubled glances from Clooney.

I hear myself criticizing and I cringe a little because it sounds like I'm knocking a movie for doing what I so often complain movies don't do, namely, be patient, don't over-explain, have attention span enough not to throw pointless action at us every ten minutes. I'm not saying that we needed to pile on the melodrama here, but The American dials things down so low we disengage. It's an admirable attempt. I respect the motives of everyone involved to create a slow burning thriller without relying on the usual bullshit Hollywood crutches. I'd be interested to see another film from this creative team. The director has a great eye and a rare focus. But the fact is The American misses the mark, never finding reason enough to justify occupying two hours of our time.

Verdict: The American reminded me of Kuleshov Experiment, a classic film study that presented audiences with a neutral close-up of a person which would take on the properties of the shots surrounding it. Precede the person with soup, for example, and audiences would say the person looked hungry, precede the person with a bed and he would look sleepy. All the while it was still the same expressionless close-up. Here we are presented with a character and we project on to him remorse and yearning, but I'm not sure the filmmakers have done more than give us that blank slate surrounded by great heaps of European art film atmosphere. 4 out of 10.

Most Anticipated : September Update

With The American currently dueling it's polar opposite Machete for the number one spot at the box office, it is time to remove Clooney's assassin from the Anticipation Chart and see what's on the horizon to get excited about.

The King's Speech is the type of production that can reek of Oscar pandering - award-friendly cast, historical subject matter to lend importance, triumph-over-adversity story - you know the drill. But the thing is, some times these Oscar friendly crowd-pleasers can actually turn out to be pretty fine films, just look at Quiz Show or Elizabeth.

Director Tom Hooper has a record of cranking out prestige productions like TV's John Adams and Elizabeth I that don't sacrifice brains in favor of simplicity or lose soul by piling on sentiment. If he can maintain that quality level on the big screen this will be one to watch. Plus the story of King George VI fighting his debilitating speaking problems to rally England in time of war is the the kind of showcase role that could make Colin Firth a real contender in the Best Actor race, especially when his brilliant work in A Single Man went unrewarded just last year.

"How About a Little Fire, Scarecrow?"

So I'm watching The Wizard of Oz with my nephews and it gets to the scene where Dorothy and friends have set out through the Haunted Forest to kill the Wicked Witch.

Having never seen the movie on a big screen in HD I spotted a bunch of stuff I've never seen before. I noticed that the big pump the Lion is carrying is labeled "Witch Remover", that's funny. I remember the giant butterfly net, but not the giant wrench the Tin Man is holding. What does he need an oversized wrench for if he already has an ax?

Wait...hold on a second...there's something funny here...

Is the Scarecrow holding a handgun?! He is! Look at it:

Has that been in the movie this whole time? Where did he get a gun? They have gun shop in the Emerald City? These are the people who wet their emerald green pants when the Wicked Witch sky-writes "Surrender Dorothy" and all this time they're sitting on an arsenal?

Am I the only one who didn't realize this was in there? What else have I failed to noticed in my childhood favorites? If I rewatch Mary Poppins will she pull a sniper rifle out of her bottomless carpet bag? I'm afraid to find out.

Great Shots: A Face in the Crowd

Elia Kazan's A Face in the Crowd was shot by the great Harry Stradling Sr., so it features no shortage of memorable shots. The framing and lighting of Griffith's Lonesome Rhodes tells the story as clearly as the prescient screenplay by Budd Schulberg. This shot is my favorite because it lets the audience contrast the various sides of Lonesome in ways more subtle than they first appear.

On the right side of the frame we see what the audience at home sees, Loneseome Rhodes dominating the frame with his wild untamed energy. It's electrifying. On the left, unnoticed, we see the machine that keeps Lonesome Rhodes in business. Just out of frame there is an army of bored employees manufacturing the magic that the audience keeps swallowing like the Vitajex pills he pushes.

But the thing that really makes the shot is the little boy in the wheelchair in the center. Not just because of the obvious image of the boy weighed down by the banner of the show's sponsor, but because we're left to imagine how horrifying the face on the right looks from that poor boy's perspective. The television frame can barely contain his Jack-o-lantern grin. Up close it must be a nightmare. Hucksters like Rhodes only look good through the box.

This post is also part of the Hit Me With Your Best Shot series at The Film Experience. Be sure to check out the other choices. The cinematographer on this was a genius who shot films like A Streetcar Named Desire and My Fair Lady. It's a cliche' but it's true: Nearly every shot in the film is worthy of framing.