Dan's DVD Dumpster Diving

Not enough people use Dastardly anymore

Stanley & Iris (1990)



My second De Niro film in the dumpster dive also pairs the legendary actor with an equally acclaimed co-lead, this time in Jane Fonda. The two play the titular Stanley and Iris, workers in a baking factory who become friends and slowly develop a romance. Things become complicated however when it's revealed Stanley doesn't know how to read and he reluctantly asks if Iris will teach him. The movie is at its best early on, quietly observing the characters and their lives while letting Fonda and De Niro work their magic. Both have done far more complex work than what is asked of them here, but they are nonetheless quite good, fitting well within the working class setting and making for a couple that's easy to root for. Unfortunately, the film's plot eventually has to intervene, and what starts as a tender portrait of working adults becomes a hacky story of overcoming the odds and triumph in the face of adversity. Illiteracy is a fine subject, but this movie's portrayal of it never feels believable and all too often director Martin Ritt indulges in cornball schmaltz. The worst offender is the library scene, where Stanley demonstrates his grasp of reading by grabbing random books and reading aloud to a soaring John Williams score. The wish fulfillment of the ending also did not strike me as being particularly believable. These sentimental turns might have worked if the film had more of a magical, Capra-esque tone, but it doesn't. Stanley & Iris starts as a humble slice of life before abruptly shifting gears. Overall, De Niro and Fonda are so innately charming and likable that the film is never actively bad, but it doesn't amount to much of anything either.

C

I meant to include a line about all three movies coming out in 1990 but it slipped my mind when writing.

As far as I'm concerned Pesci deserved that Oscar. Liotta was definitely snubbed though.

When Did You Last See Your Father? (2007)



Throughout this series, I've had some knowledge of each movie before actually watching it. Maybe it was a general pop-culture understanding or I'd stumbled across the trailer before, but I had some expectations going into every viewing. At least until now. I have never heard of When Did You Last See Your Father? in any context beyond it randomly sitting in my DVD collection, one of many films that was just left by a family friend. I could tell from looking at the case that it featured powerhouse British actors Colin Firth and Jim Broadbent, but otherwise, I had no idea what I was getting into. As it turns out, the film is a drama about a middle-aged man reckoning with his conflicted feelings about his father as the father sits in his deathbed. The film alternates between flashbacks of the protagonist as a teen and his frustrations with his dad, and the present day storyline as the father slowly dies. So it's basically like Big Fish but without the fantastical or enchanting elements...and boy are those elements missed. When Did You Last See Your Father? is a perfectly respectable adult drama, but it's quite dry and not entirely interesting. Part of the issue is that the film's protagonist is incredibly mopey, to the point of being annoying. That sort of makes sense when the character's a teen, but even as a middle-aged man the guy is still hung up on his banal daddy issues. The film was in fact based on a memoir by author/poet Blake Morrison, and he seems to have vastly overestimated how interesting his own life is to outsiders. Then again, it's entirely possible the material plays much better on the page than on the screen. Director Anand Tucker hardly embarrasses himself, but little about the filmmaking is especially noteworthy or memorable. There's an attempt to distinguish the flashbacks and the present day scenes by making the former more saturated and the latter more drab, but even this isn't entirely consistent.

Despite all my complaints, When Did You Last See Your Father? does at least feel like a sincere attempt to grapple with grief in a mature way. And perhaps it goes without saying, but the performances from Firth and Broadbent are quite strong. Broadbent in particular gets to play a real force of personality and there's fun to be had in watching him. The climactic emotional peak of the story also resonated more powerfully than I expected. Overall though, this is a pretty unexceptional movie that I don't suspect will leave much of a lasting impression on me.

C+


Also, I hate the fucking title. I instinctively want to say "When Did You See Your Father Last". When Did You Last See Your Father? is so much more awkward to say.

I think the title is different in North America. My DVD omits the "and".

Ha! I watched Peaceful Warrior for extra credit in a college class. It was a business law course but somehow the professor knew the director, he brought it to school and they screened it in the auditorium. I haven't even thought of that movie since 2007. Yeah, it's a piece of crap. I didn't know that about the guy being a convicted child molester, that just makes it even worse.

Even I'm not that bad.

Literally nothing. You may as well have watched Debbie Does Dallas.

That one wasn't really a gift. My Dad's friend wanted to get rid of a bunch of DVDs and, knowing I liked movies, just left me a box of stuff.

Disturbia (2007)



"Rear Window but for millennials starring Shia LaBeouf" would be a glib description of Disturbia, but not an inaccurate one. Shia plays Kale Brecht, a teenager who, following the death of his father in a car accident, has become withdrawn and hostile. After attacking his teacher for bringing up his father, Kale is placed under house arrest. Battling boredom, Kale begins to spy on his suburban neighbors, and starts to suspect old man Mr. Turner is actually a serial killer. The idea of a teen-friendly modern update of Rear Window sounds inherently lame on some level, but on the other hand, there are certainly worse things to rip off than Hitchcock. Moreover, I feel like the Rear Window premise is malleable enough that it can be applied to other stories and settings similar to a Rashomon. And yeah, there's some fun stuff in this iteration on the concept, particularly with the house arrest aspect. I like how Kale needs to mark out a physical perimeter to know how far he can leave his house before the ankle monitor goes off, or how the characters use modern tech like cellphones and cameras to more effectively spy on Turner. The movie also pretty effectively shifts from a teen hangout movie with Kale mostly just killing time to a more high stakes investigation which gradually becomes all-encompassing. David Morse is well-cast as the kind of unassuming character actor that doesn't immediately seem suspicious but can still deliver as a creepy villain.

So Disturbia does a fair amount of stuff right and is a lot more respectable than a CW-flavored Rear Window remake could have been, but it still makes some major missteps. For one, the climax is a pretty standard cat-and-mouse chase which basically abandons the house arrest premise for a more conventional showdown against a serial killer. That's a disappointment, but the bigger problem with the film is the absolutely pathetic love story. One of the first hobbies Kale strikes up during his lockdown is creepily spying on his new hot neighbour Ashley, watching her change, ogling her as she swims and exorcises, etc. This is not in and of itself a problem, exploring voyeuristic behaviour is central to the material, but you'd expect there be some sort of change once Kale and Ashley actually meet, Ashley shifting from the object of Kale's voyeuristic gaze to a three-dimensional human being with her own agency and point of view. But that doesn't really happen. Ashley remains a wish-fulfillment fantasy without much personality and Kale continues to voyeuristically lust after her. When Ashley finally does call Kale out for his spying, Kale gives a romantic speech that wins her heart. And by romantic speech, I mean that Kale talks about how he watched her eat pizza flavoured chips and read books - not shitty teen magazines like Seventeen, but substantial works of literature. Kale doesn't actually name any books though because that would require actually thinking about Ashley's character or interests. So in sum, Ashley accuses Kale of being a creep, Kale makes a "you're not like the other girls" speech, and Ashley responds by wanting to slob on his knob. It's embarrassing.

Ashley's entire character is a waste, time that would have been much better spent with Kale's mother, played by Carrie Ann Moss. It feels like she should have been a much bigger part of the story. The first ten minutes of the movie stress how the death of Kale's father have caused a rift between mother and son, but then she mostly leaves the story until she needs to be preyed upon by the villain. But based on the set-up, I think it would have made a lot more sense if she were more involved in solving the mystery. Like, maybe she's dismissive of Kale's accusations at first, but gradually gets sucked into the conspiracy, and mother and son work together to expose the murderer. I realize bonding with your mom isn't as cool as getting yourself a hot girlfriend, but it's much more consistent with the storytelling elements at play. A fractured relationship is repaired by two characters working together to uncover a murder. It kind of reminds me of that one Hitchcock movie. I think it was called Lifeboat.

C-

Men of Honor (2000)



Men of Honor is based on the true story of Carl Brashear, the first African-American to serve as a Master Diver in the United States Navy and the first man in Navy history to return from injury with a prothesis and continue to serve full active duty. The film specifically covers Brashear's experience in Diving School in the late 1940s, as well as his injury and rehabilitation process in 1966. In other words, it's an inspiring true story. I've already outlined that this is not a style of movie I particularly respond to and director George Tillman Jr. plays right into the corniest of sentiments. Scenes in Men of Honor are of two modes: either sorrowful low points scored to delicate melancholy, or jubilant triumph backed by a soaring orchestra. There is no in-between. Brashear himself, as played by Cuba Gooding Jr., is a boring goody two-shows lacking in flaws or any real personality beyond wanting to be the best diver. The characterization resembles the paragons of decency Sidney Poitier played who were so clean-cut they felt bereft of life. The difference is that Poitier carried the presence and charisma of a larger-than-life movie star which elevated a potentially boring character into something far more engaging. Cuba, for whatever his strengths as an actor, does not carry that same affect, and can't make this boring one-note hero into something more interesting.

I'm also not bringing up Poitier arbitrarily, Men of Honor is very much following in the mold of Hollywood race dramas of the 50s and 60s where a Black man overcomes racism by demonstrating his individual worth and earning the respect of a previously bigoted white guy. It's the kind of toothless representation that's more interested in comforting white progressives than actually confronting the roots of racism, made worse by the fact that Robert De Niro's instructor is not merely racist, but also physically and psychologically abusive. The film also dips into white savior territory in its third act, where it's De Niro's character who coaches Brashear through his injury rehabilitation and is essential to the triumphant climax. As you can probably guess, this character didn't actually exist, but the issue isn't one of historical inaccuracy, it's how the film twists the story of a Black man struggling within racist systems to a story of white redemption. To try to give an example of how the film feels, imagine if in Full Metal Jacket, Gunnery Sergeant Hartman's psychological torture of Leonard ended not in a murder-suicide, but in Hartman coming to respect Lawrence and even helping him out of a jam. Now add the baggage of racism and you've basically got Men of Honor.

And if all that weren't enough, the movie is just plain boring. Part of this is because the women characters played by Charlize Theron and Aunjanue Ellis are such afterthoughts that their scenes feel pointless, but on a simpler level, the film is horribly structured. So much of the plot is oriented around Diving School that Brashear's final test, which has been unfairly rigged against him to the point that it becomes a life or death crisis, feels like the climax of the movie. It's certainly directed like a climax, a high stakes set-piece where Brashear overcomes the racist barriers stacked against him, ultimately resolving his conflict with De Niro and paying off his motivation to be the best at what he does. But then the movie just keeps going for almost another hour, rather aimlessly until Brashear's injury provides a new obstacle to be overcome. It feels tacked on and unnecessary. The movie should have either more firmly relegated Diving School to act one and placed less importance on De Niro as the film's antagonist, or focused entirely on the training portion of Brashear's career, concluding with his graduation. That wouldn't fix that the movie is yet another where a white racist is shown the error of his ways by an impressive Black man, but at least the movie would be paced a little better, and at least the white racist wouldn't have got to play the hero in the movie's climax.

A part of me wanted to go easy on Men of Honor. For all its flaws, I do think the film was made with honest intentions, De Niro doesn't sleepwalk through the material, and the film is generally made with a degree of competence and respectability. But then I thought, why am I making excuses for this boring, fundamentally uninsightful movie? The fact is, I got next to nothing from this movie. It's too simplistic to move me as drama, too naïve to function as a thoughtful depiction of racism, and too sloppy to really be entertaining. Even in the dubious realm of "feel good movies about America's historical racism", you'd be much better served by something like Hidden Figures, which for all its problems is at least a little more sophisticated in its portrayal of bigotry, and also just more successful as a crowd pleaser. The most entertainment I got from Men of Honor was that the DVD included the wonderfully cheesy promo for Fox DVD video that used to run in the early 2000s, and I love that thing.

D


One movie left, and it's a doozy.