The month of ....

In a past post, Jeff declared November Klaus Kinski month at Aún Estamos Vivos, and I thought I'd do the same with another actor, but since November is almost over, squish the whole thing into one post. It was hard to choose who. I finally settled on Alec Baldwin.

Before you give up on my post :) let me say that Baldwin, while disliked by many for his personality, does have some redeeming personal characteristics - he has spent a lot of money and time supporting causes like AIDs research, breast cancer research, and animal welfare, and he has some interesting political views that are expressed in his Huffington Post blog (latest post - Hoping Hillary Says Yes).

But mostly I hope you keep reading the post because whatever you may think of Baldwin as a person, I believe him to be a good actor and below I've mentioned five movies of his .....

Beetlejuice



This odd 1988 comedy also starred Geena Davis, Winona Ryder, and Michael Keaton, and was directed by Tim Burton. The plot tells of the adjustment problems of a young married and suddenly dead couple (Baldwin and Davis) who try to haunt away the new family that moves into their beloved New England country home. You can read Ebert's 2 star review here.


Prelude to a Kiss


- a mysterious older man kisses Baldwin's new bride and steals her soul

This atypically romantic 1992 movie (rated R) was adapted from the 1988 play of the same name written by Craig Lucas (Baldwin was in the play as well), and also starred Meg Ryan. Ebert actually did like this one and gave it 3 stars - read his review. Here's what Wikipedia says of the plot ...

Despite her pessimistic outlook on life, Rita Boyle, a liberal, free-spirited aspiring graphic designer who earns a living as a bartender, falls in love with and marries Peter Hoskins, the conservative employee of a Chicago publishing house. At their wedding, the couple is approached by Julius, a lonely, elderly man who requests permission to kiss the bride. When he does, their spirits switch places, leaving Peter with a young, vibrant wife trapped within an aged, diseased, disintegrating body. Whether or not he can see beyond the physical and embrace the beautiful soul he loves and Julius will agree to return to his cancer-riddled flesh by kissing Rita again are the dilemmas that must be resolved.


Malice


- Baldwin and Pullman

This 1993 B movie (written in part by Aaron Sorkin of West Wing fame), which also starred another actor I like, Bill Pullman, and had roles for Peter Gallagher and Bebe Neuwirth too, had a convoluted plot about a seemingly happily married couple, a doctor with a God complex, a serial killer, and a devious conspiracy (rated R). Here's a bit of what Ebert wrote of it in his 2 star review ....

My hands are tied here. I can't go into detail without revealing vital secrets. Yet after the movie is over and you try to think through those secrets, you get into really deep molasses. Who, for example, was the doctor in Boston? If it's who we think it was, how did he maintain dual identities? If he didn't, then who ran the abortion clinic? How did the co-conspirators first meet? Why would the payoff of their conspiracy seem attractive, given the price they would have to pay in professional, emotional and physical losses? And so on. Not even to mention the little boy who lives next door. "Malice" was directed by Harold Becker, whose credits include the splendid films "The Onion Field" and "Sea of Love," and he milks this material for a great deal more than it is worth.

The Shadow



I really liked this 1994 film about the past character, The Shadow. It stars another actor I like a lot - John Lone - as well as Ian McKellen and Tim Curry. It didn't do well at the box office but how can I not love a film that begins in an opium den in Tibet in the 30s? Ebert liked it too and gave it 3 stars in his review.

The Edge


- Hopkins and Baldwin and Bart

This 1997 film also stars Anthony Hopkins, Elle Macpherson and Bart the bear :) and was written by David Mamet. I recommend this movie with trepidation because I found it so upsetting, but here's what Ebert wrote in his 3 star review of it .....

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"The Edge" is like a wilderness adventure movie written by David Mamet, which is not surprising, since it was written by Mamet. It's subtly funny in the way it toys with the cliches of the genre. Too subtle, apparently, for some; I've read a couple of reviews by critics who think director Lee Tamahori ("Once Were Warriors") misses the point of the Mamet screenplay and plays the material too straight. But if he'd underlined every laugh line and made the humor as broad as "The Naked Gun," would that have made a better picture? Not at all.

Although Mamet, a poet of hard-boiled city streets, is not usually identified with outdoors action films, "The Edge" in some ways is typical of his work: It's about con games and occult knowledge, double crosses and conversations at cross-purposes. Its key scenes involve two men stalking each other, and it adds to the irony that they are meanwhile being stalked by a bear. "Most people lost in the wild die of shame," the older character tells the younger. "They didn't do the one thing that could save their lives--thinking." The setup: Billionaire Charles Morse (Anthony Hopkins) flies his private plane into the Alaskan wilderness so that fashion photographer Robert Green (Alec Baldwin) can photograph Morse's wife, a famous model (Elle Macpherson). Leaving the wife behind at a lodge, the two men and a photographer's assistant fly farther into the bush, and when the plane crashes and the pilot is killed, the three survivors are left to face the wilderness.

At this point we can easily predict the death of the assistant (Harold Perrineau). He's an African American, and so falls under the BADF action movie rule ("The Brother Always Dies First"). The redeeming factor in this case is that Mamet knows that, and is satirizing the stereotype instead of merely using it. His approach throughout the movie is an amused wink at the conventions he lovingly massages.

Now Charles and Bob are left alone in the dangerous wild. Charles luckily is a very bright man, who just happens to have been reading the book Lost in the Woods, and has the kind of mind that absorbs every scrap of information that floats into it. Before the movie is over, he will fashion a compass from a paper clip, build a bear trap, make fire from ice and explain how you can use gunpowder to season meat.

Charles is also smart enough to suspect that Bob has been having an affair with his wife. "So how are you planning to kill me?" he asks. The catch is that each man needs the other to survive, and so a murder, if any, must be postponed or carefully timed.

The movie contains glorious scenery, quixotic Mamet conversations, and of course the obligatory action scenes. Even in generating tension, the movie toys with convention. As a bear pursues them, the men desperately bridge a deep chasm with a log, and hurry to cross it--not sitting down and scooting as any sensible person would, but trying to walk across while balancing themselves, like the Escaping Wallendas. Meanwhile, the bear, which often seems to have its tongue in its cheek, stands on the far edge and shakes the log with both paws.

There are a few bear-wrestling matches and a big showdown with the beast, but the movie doesn't lose its mind and go berserk with action in the last half hour, as most action films seem to. (One of the enduring disappointments for the faithful moviegoer is to see interesting characters established in the first two acts, only to be turned into action puppets in the third.) It is typical of Mamet that he could devise his plot in such a way that the climactic payoff would be not bloodshed, but the simple exchange of a wristwatch.

Having successfully negotiated almost its entire 118 minutes, ``The Edge'' shoots itself in the foot. After the emotionally fraught final moments, just as we are savoring the implications of what has just happened, the screen fades to black and we immediately get a big credit for "Bart the Bear." Now Bart is one helluva bear (I loved him in the title role of "The Bear"), but this credit in this place is a spectacularly bad idea.

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