Movie Review: The Number 23

The Number 23 (2007) 

Directed by Joel Schumacher 

Written by Fernley Phillips 

Starring Jim Carrrey, Virginia Madsen, Logan Lerman, Danny Huston 

Release Date February 23rd, 2007 

Published February 22nd, 2007 

Jim Carrey has struggled to overcome his reputation as just a clown for years. He has done well with dramatic turns in The Truman Show, Man on The Moon, and The Majestic. With his latest picture he once again works against type this time as a potentially psychotic family man in the thriller The Number 23. He should probably have stuck with comedy. The Number 23, directed by Joel Schumacher, is a goofball thriller with an interesting premise that never works because Jim Carrey is simply the wrong actor for this role.

Walter Sparrow (Carrey) has a life that is rather mundane. As a dog catcher he doesn't seem to have much to do from day to day, when there aren't dogs to catch. Aside from waiting for his wife, Agatha (Virginia Madsen), to finish work everyday he's a pretty boring and lonely guy. One day, when Walter picked up Agatha from work he found her in a bookstore. There she purchased for him an odd used book called The Number 23.

Walter is skeptical of the book at first; but two chapters in he is hooked. The book, it seems to Walter, is mirroring his life. The description of the lead character Fingerling, played by Carrey himself in dream sequences, matches Walter's childhood experiences almost exactly. As the story progresses Walter see's more parallels with his own life, especially in relation to the book's central theme about the number 23 which Walter links everywhere in his life. Eventually the book predicts Walter will murder his wife and he must find some way to keep that from happening.

Directed by Joel Schumacher from a script by Fernley Phillips, The Number 23 is a paranoid thriller that indulges an interesting conspiracy but sadly degenerates into a series of ever less believable twists before crashing and burning in the final 20 minutes. The idea behind the film is interesting. The number 23 has in fact been linked by conspiracy theorists to all sorts of tragedies and the script for The Number 23 initially makes good use of this.

From the moment the first trailer for The Number 23 hit theaters Jim Carrey fans have worried that they had another Cable Guy on their hands. They were right. The Number 23 is yet another manic, out of control performance for the funnyman, only this time without the few spare laughs that other film managed. Carrey simply can't find the right pitch for this type of character. He can do morose and he can do manic but when he combines those attributes as he did in Cable Guy and as he does in The Number 23 his performance becomes messy and over-indulgent.

I love the idea of this film. With a tighter script and a different lead actor; I believe The Number 23 could be a dense, conspiracy thriller. In reading about the number 23 enigma I found that the number is linked to the Illuminati and other rich conspiracy targets. Those who have obsessed over the number, those who suffer from an illness called Apophenia; the experience of seeing patterns in random meaningless data, have connected the number 23 to numerous historic tragedies from the Oklahoma City bombing to the siege in Waco Texas to 9/11.

Did you know that Oklahoma City and Waco both happened on 4/19. 4 +19 is 23. No matter that Timothy McVeigh intimated that he chose that date for the Oklahoma City bombing because it was the date of the Waco siege, the conspiracy theory about this ridiculous number is more fun. A movie about that kind of mania would likely be much more fun than the mess that is The Number 23.

I'm certainly not suggesting that there is a role Jim Carrey can't play. However, clearly there are roles he shouldn't play. Psycho, conspiracy-attled killer simply doesn't suit Carrey. It didn't work in The Cable Guy and it works far less in The Number 23. Granted, a third act train-wreck in Joel Schumacher's direction does Carrey few favors but even with Schumacher's bad direction, Carrey is so wrong for the role that even good direction likely could not save The Number 23. \

Movie Review: Nutcracker and the Four Realms

The Nutcracker and the Four Realms (2018) 

Directed by Lasse Hallstrom, Joe Johnston

Written by Ashleigh Powell 

Starring Keira Knightley, Mackenzie Foy, Eugenio Derbez, Richard E. Grant, Helen Mirren 

Release Date November 2nd, 2018 

Published November 1st, 2018 

The Nutcracker and the Four Realms isn’t bad if you’re under the age of 10 perhaps. If you can see it through the eyes of a child it has a lovely, safe, message about self-empowerment and a bright, shiny visual style that is impressively busy. If you can get over how simple the movie is and remember that it was made for children, you might be able to find a way to enjoy it more than I did.

The Nutcracker and the Four Realms stars Mackenzie Foy as Clara, one of three siblings, children of Mr. Stahlbaum (Matthew McFadyen) whose wife, and the children’s mother, has passed away not long ago. Nevertheless, the family is to attend the party of Clara’s Godfather, Mr Drosselmyer (Morgan Freeman) and attempt to put their grief aside. This won’t be easy as before they leave for the party, Mr Stahlbaum hands out Christmas presents from their late mother. 

For Clara, the gift is a complex mechanical egg with a keyhole but no key. There is a note with it that reads “All you need is inside” which makes it more frustrating that she does not have the key. Thankfully, at the party, Mr Drosselmyer reveals that he has the key and the key is waiting for Clara at the end of a string which leads her to a magical place called the Four Realms. The Four Realms are an entire fantasy land that her mother had built and populated with fascinating characters. 

Up first is a toy soldier who guards a bridge into the 4th Realm. He is the Nutcracker of the title, real name Phillip (Jayden Fowora-Knight). Phillip warns Clara not to go into the 4th realm because it is inhabited by the dangerous Mother Ginger (Helen Mirren) and her army of mice. Unfortunately, Mother Ginger’s mouse army has made off with Clara’s key and she needs to get it back to open the egg and unlock its secrets. 

Before Clara can try to get her key back she must first see the rest of the cast including the leaders of the realms including the leader of the Flower realm, Hawthorne (Eugenio Derbez) and the leader of the Ice Realm, Shiver (Richard E. Grant). And finally, there is the leader of the candy realm, known as Sugar Plum (Keira Knightley). Sugar Plum is the most outlandish of the group and begins to explain to Clara that her mother was their beloved Queen and how the realms are now at war with Mother Ginger because of the Queen’s absence. 

Sugar Plum lays out the plot, she too needs the key being held by Mother Ginger so that she can turn on the machine that can make toy soldiers that can then battle Mother Ginger’s mouse army. Eager to open the egg and get at the secret her mother left behind, Clara offers to take a contingent of Nutcrackers to the 4th Realm and go head to head with Mother Ginger. She will come back with the key or all will be lost. 

No points for guessing that Clara gets the key back. The plot requires that she open the egg and we find out what her mother’s cryptic message was about. You can probably guess, just as I did, rather easily, what is inside the egg that has all the answers. It’s a mirror of course, because everything Clara needs is inside herself. Get it? It really is as if the movie were good-naturedly elbowing you in the ribs to see if you understood this, not all that deep insight. 

Indeed, the filmmakers appear quite pleased with themselves for rehashing this old cliche. But, in fairness, it’s a cliche to us jaded adults who’ve seen this kind of empowerment cheese before. For kids, especially those seeing movies for the first time, this may indeed be a revelation and it is pitched in such a simple, easy to consume fashion that it may resonate with children in a powerful way. It was groan inducing for me and perhaps most adults but I get what the movie is going for here and I understand that it is not intended to impress ME. 

There is a harmless, charmingly disposable quality to The Nutcracker and the Four Realms. There is nothing terribly wrong with it as a movie for grade school audiences. It has a broad beauty to it in cinematography and design that children will find enchanting and the empowerment message is fine, not exactly subtle or well crafted, but it’s fine. The part of how Sugar Plum comes to represent the angry, childish aspect of Clara’s grief is, again, not subtle, rather over top, but I can see the message reaching a child and I can’t say that’s a bad thing. 

Do I wish that we would not condescend to children at the movies? Yes, I don’t believe movies have to be dumbed down to reach a young audience. The Toy Story movies are a great example of reaching children and asking them to rise up to meet the movie rather than talking down by assuming children don’t get complex relationships and metaphors. I would argue: how will a child ever fully grow up if we keep speaking down to them? 

That said, Nutcracker and the Four Realms is not the worst example of movies talking down to children. There is a strong attempt by the filmmakers to be on the level with children even as it is patently condescending in its simplicity. But, for the most part, The Nutcracker and the Four Realms is a harmless empowerment fantasy with a nice look to it and deeply committed performances from Helen Mirren and Keira Knightley. 

I don’t love this movie by any stretch and if you are not the parent of a very young child, I don’t recommend The Nutcracker and the Four Realms. That said, if you are the parent of a young child, grade school and younger, you could do far worse than having your child watch this movie.

Movie Review The Omen (2006)

The Omen (2006) 

Directed by John Moore 

Written by David Seitzer 

Starring Julia Stiles, Liev Schreiber, Mia Farrow, David Thewlis, Michael Gambon 

Release Date June 6th, 2006 

Published June 5th, 2006 

666 is the number of the beast. It's also the number hiding somewhere on the body of five year old Damien Thorn. You see, Damien is not in fact the son of Robert and Katherine Thorn, played by Liev Schreiber and Julia Stiles. On the day his son was to be born Robert Thorn arrived at a religious hospital in Rome to find his son had died at birth. The doctors waited till Robert arrived before telling his wife Catherine (Julia Stiles). There was however a secondary motive to not telling her. A small child was born simultaneously in the hospital to a mother who died while giving birth.

The priest in charge of the hospital makes a deal with Robert to adopt this child in secret and raise him as his own. If all of this sounds rather convenient, you have no idea how right you are. Cut to five years later and young Damien is a slightly creepy looking five year old with no outwardly sinister ambitions until his birthday. At the party Damien's nanny suddenly decides to hang herself in front of the entire crowd of children and parents. Only young Damien seems unaffected by this scene.

Following this disturbing event Robert is visited by a crazed priest, Father Brennen (Pete Postlethwaite). Babbling about how Robert needs to accept Christ as his savior, Father Brennen wishes to explain to Robert that his child Damien is actually the son of the devil. Upon Father Brennen's ghastly death a photographer (David Thewlis) makes a terrifying discovery that will lead he and Robert across the globe to uncover his sons true nature. Meanwhile young Damien and his new nanny Mrs. Baylock (Mia Farrow) set there sights on poor Katherine.

At first The Omen 2006 is a slavishly devoted retelling of the original story. However, director John Moore eventually finds his own way of making The Omen his. Through the use of some exquisite art direction, location shooting and cinematography, The Omen develops a steadily chilling atmosphere that grows exponentially more shocking and genuinely scary as the movie progresses.

John Moore's first film was a forgettable remake of the Jimmy Stewart flick Flight Of The Phoenix. That film never gave any indication that Moore had this kind of directorial talent. His eye for visual splendor in The Omen is exquisite here, where it was desperately muted in Flight of the Phoenix. Moore draws genuine scares not from the usual bait and switch histrionics of cats leaping from the shadows and music stabs but from crafting atmosphere and artful misdirection.

The film evokes the original The Omen with stars Schreiber and Stiles bringing echoes of Gregory Peck and Remick to live but never surpassing the legends from the original. Only Mia Farrow as Mrs. Baylock truly stands apart from the original film. That is mostly because of the oddity of her casting. Ms. Farrow is well known as the mother of Satan's child in 1969's Rosemary's Baby. Her casting in The Omen is a terrific inside joke for horror fans.

Because so little is changed from the original The Omen is a directorial revelation. Only John Moore's direction provides the opportunity for updating this material and that is a challenge that Moore meets and surpasses. The Omen 2006 is a visual horror nightmare that improves on familiar material with directorial flourish worthy of masters class. I never would have expected this from John Moore but after The Omen I cannot wait to see what he could do with original material.

Movie Review: The Order

The Order (2003) 

Directed by Brian Helgeland 

Written by Brian Helgeland 

Starring Heath Ledger, Shannyn Sossomon, Mark Addy, Benno Furman, Peter Weller

Release Date September 5th, 2003 

Published September 4th, 2003 

It's not Heath Ledger's fault

It's not his fault that even before he finished what was to be his breakout role as a lead actor in A Knight's Tale, that Hollywood's marketing machine was on full blast anointing him the heir apparent to Mel Gibson. It wasn't Ledger's fault that seemingly out of nowhere Hollywood had decided that audiences loved Heath Ledger. He hadn't had a top-line-starring role yet and already he was on every magazine cover and his name was being mentioned in company with box office heavyweights like Mel Gibson and Tom Cruise.

A Knight's Tale went on to gross over $100 million dollars but no actor could live up to that hype and his next film, the stolid but beautiful looking Four Feathers, bombed miserably. Even before that failure Ledger had another film albatross around his neck called The Order, a film made as a favor to Director Brian Helgeland soon after completing A Knight's Tale.

In The Order, Ledger plays Father Alex Bernier, a New York priest for a strange and largely ignored Catholic sect. Father Alex's mentor back in the holy city of Rome has been killed and the Catholic hierarchy wants Father Alex to investigate the circumstances. The death is seemingly a suicide but on closer inspection, Alex begins to suspect murder.

With the help of a fellow priest played by Mark Addy, and an oddball romantic interest played by Shannyn Sossamon, Father Bernier slowly uncovers a conspiracy within the church that could result in a new pope. The conspiracy involves a supernatural being known as the Sin Eater (Benno Furmann), a deity who can send anyone to heaven with a clean slate of sin. Through ritual, the Sin Eater takes in the evil committed by men of power allowing them a free pass into heaven. It is the Sin Eater who killed Alex's mentor and Alex wants revenge. What the Sin Eater wants is Alex.

Here is the odd thing about the Sin Eater, though he is the bad guy, the things he does actually don't seem that bad. He seems to serve a purpose that some might call admirable. He absolves the sins of people who are near death and are uncertain about their chances to get into heaven. Whether he can get them there or not is unimportant, it just seems that the comfort he provides to the dying is something to be admired.

Peter Weller shows up in The Order in a vaguely sinister role as the possible new pope, a badly underwritten role that makes little sense. But then, not much of The Order makes sense. As written by Director Brian Helgeland, it's a story that has an interesting religious hook but doesn't know what to do with it. It doesn't help that the dialogue is stiflingly dull with both Ledger and Sossoman delivering their lines in sullen monotones that sound as if they were rehearsing their lines rather than actually performing them. 

Disdain for the church is fair, in my eyes, considering the recent scandals and painting the church as harboring the ultimate evils is a clever allegory to use in a movie plot. Unfortunately The Order isn't interested in symbolism. The Order is a straight genre suspense flick with supernatural overtones and has no other aspiration. It's a shame because religious-themed mysteries are an undeserved dramatic context. With all the vagaries of religious text, the mystery and suspense that can be found in religion is endless.

This film however is only interested in it's minor twists and jolts, none of which rise to the genre of horror which some have ascribed it to. There are neither enough blood nor scares for The Order to be called a horror film. As I stated at the front, I don't think that the path of Heath Ledger's career is his fault. There is a streak of independence in Heath Ledger that seems to chafe at the attention he receives for his looks. It's the same look that Johnny Depp had early in his career as he fought off matinee idol pigeonholing. Whether Ledger has the same nose for smart material as Depp has developed, is something he has yet have to prove.

Movie Review: The Other Boleyn Girl

The Other Boleyn Girl (2008) 

Directed by Justin Chadwick 

Written by Peter Morgan 

Starring Natalie Portman, Scarlett Johansson, Eric Bana, Kristen Scott Thomas, Mark Rylance, David Morrissey 

Release date February 29th, 2008 

Published February 27th, 2008 

Where most period pieces rely on class and pomp and circumstance The Other Boleyn Girl, from director Justin Chadwick, and based on the bestseller by Phillippa Gregory, indulges modern soap opera crossed with crackling dialogue, dark humor and an all star cast. It works to create a devilishly entertaining period piece that may just reach beyond the typical fans of the period. In The Other Boleyn Girl Scarlett Johanssen, Natalie Portman and Eric Bana spice up period piece stuffiness with a sexy vibe that even overwhelms the constraints of the PG-13 rating.

King Henry the 8th (Eric Bana) needed a son to continue to project his power. Unfortunately, his wife Catherine of Eragon (Ana Torrent) has once again miscarried and will likely never bear children. This news leaks to the Duke of Norfolk (David Morrissey) who senses an opportunity for advancement. Visiting the family of his sister Lady Elizabeth Boleyn and her husband Thomas, Norfolk has a dangerous proposition. He will entice King Henry to visit the Boleyn home. While he is there the eldest Boleyn sister Anne (Natalie Portman) will find her way to his bed and become his mistress. If she is able to bear him a son, the Boleyn family will be set for life.

The plan goes awry however when the king fails to fall for Ann and instead falls for the slightly younger and recently married Mary Boleyn (Scarlett Johannson). Bringing the Boleyn's to the royal court, Henry makes Mary his mistress while banishing her husband (Benedict Cumberbatch) to the outer reaches of the kingdom. Unfortunately for Mary, the king's affections are fickle. Her crowning achievement, becoming pregnant, becomes a problem when the king's eye begins to wander. Now the family turns to Ann. Recently banished to France after a rash, unarranged wedding that the Duke has narrowly been able to cover up, Ann returns changed, more mature and ready to take the king for herself even as her task is to keep his attentions on Mary.

Ann's ambition and cunning beguiles the king and he is ready to tear the country to shreds just to satisfy her. As the king and Ann battle over her wish to be queen, there is still the matter of the current queen as well as Mary and her newborn son, now treated as a bastard and an outcast. And what of Ann's relationship with her brother George (Jim Sturgess) and his marriage to the busybody Jane Parker (Juno Temple).

A great deal of palace intrigue unfolds with all of the sexy twists and melodramatic turns of a great television soap opera writ large for the big screen. Director Justin Chadwick, working from a screenplay penned by the books author Phillipa Gregory, gives this material life by populating it with great actors, biting dialogue, and high stakes chicanery. The Boleyn men, exceptionally played by Mark Rylance and David Morrissey play a high stakes game with these two supposedly teenage girls. The risk is their heads on spikes, dealing with an oafish impetuous king who has already spiked his closest friend for reasons only he understood and called treason.

The future of the Boleyn family rides on these teenage girls ability to manipulate an impulsive, unpredictable and desperate king well played by Eric Bana. With subtle genius, Eric Bana brings about a King Henry the 8th who is both commanding in the presence of men and yet just naive enough to be taken in by the scheming Ann. We learn early on that his true turn on is subservience as he falls for the respectful and bowing Mary. However, he is drawn to Ann by the reflection of his own power. As she becomes the first to deny him anything, he cannot help but wish to conquer her. The plan backfires on all involved and precipitates great melodrama all around.

The Other Boleyn Girl is an exceptional example of the way great melodrama can win over an audience by at once indulging in bad behavior and then standing in judgement of it. The prudishness of Mary is exposed in her falling for the king and then punished when she is forced to watch her sister steal him away. Ann's abhorrent behavior in double-crossing her sister is devilishly fun to witness but just as fun is watching her get what she has coming to her. Portman is better than you might expect as a temptress while Johansson plays the virginal Mary with an edge of sultry sexuality that few actresses could wring from this role.

The Other Boleyn Girl is not a great movie but for pulpy modern soap opera Ala the best of Desperate Housewives, only much smarter, it is top notch entertainment. 

Movie Review: The Other Guys

The Other Guys (2010) 

Directed by Adam McKay 

Written by Adam McKay, Chris Henchy

Starring Will Ferrell, Mark Wahlberg, Dwayne The Rock Johnson, Samuel L. Jackson, Michael Keaton 

Release Date August 6th, 2010

Published August 5th, 2010 

The “Saturday Night Live” influence on modern movie comedy cannot be underestimated. Yes, the movies based on SNL characters are, more often than not, miserable failures but that is not where the influence lies. The specter of Lorne Michaels lingers in the careers of those comic actors he plucked from relative obscurity and trained into comic athletes who chase the biggest laughs the way linebackers chase down running backs.

Will Ferrell and writer-director Adam McKay were both borne of the laugh competition environment of SNL and their most successful work reflects the instincts honed in a high pressure, big gag business. In three successful comic pairings, and “Step Brothers,” Ferrell and McKay have perfected their own SNL off-shoot, the sketch movie. It has the same characters acting in a series of context provided big gags that forcefully coalesce to something of a story-line that can be called a movie.

The latest Ferrell-McKay brand sketch movie is “The Other Guys” and while some will call the whole thing a send up of buddy cop movies; its success lies in the strength of each individual sketch that, because they include the same characters throughout, can seem like a real movie. In “The Other guys” the sketch by sketch constants are played by Ferrell as a forensic accountant turned vice detective and Mark Wahlberg as a would be big time detective busted down to desk work after he shot Derek Jeter of the Yankees right before Game 7 of the World Series. 

That's the premise each proceeds from, what happens from there is a lot of improv, some vain attempts at creating a story that exists from sketch to sketch and the energy with which both actors pursue a laugh. Credit Mark Wahlberg for being able to keep up with the veteran Ferrell on his turf. Many other actors would be reduced to tears by Ferrell's astonishing ability to riff on the same sketch idea. Wahlberg succeeds by not caring about what Ferrell does, he finds a beat of his own for each sketch and plays that to its comic height.

The Supporting actors in “The Other Guys,” including Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson, Samuel L. Jackson, Eva Mendes and Michael Keaton are each given a single beat to play and each succeeds in finding their very particular kind of funny. Dwayne Johnson and Samuel L. Jackson play the action hero cops whose glorious death scene is a wonderfully dark send up of buddy cops in movies.

Mendes’ joke, not surprising, proceeds from how gorgeous she is and how not gorgeous Ferrell as her husband is. Finally, Michael Keaton plays the oddest beat as Ferrell and Wahlberg’s boss. His joke is that he refers to songs by girl group TLC at random and claims not to know he’s doing it, and what’s great is; the joke works. I wanted to see Keaton from scene to scene just to hear how he would reference another song.

That is the whole of “The Other Guys” each actor taking their cue, finding their particular rhythm and if they happen upon something resembling a story drop it in so we can move somewhat seamlessly to the next sketch. The stuff about corporate espionage and bank bailouts that are jammed in at the edges of “The Other Guys,” that might in another movie make up the story of the ‘movie,’ are mere afterthoughts in “The Other Guys.”

”The Other Guys” like “Anchorman,” “Talledega Nights” and “Step Brothers” before it are movies about comedy. They are feature length attempts to find the most punchlines in the shortest amounts of time. They feature actors and writers whose main goals are cracking each other up and in the process cracking up the audience. Story is an afterthought; something to be picked up in reshoots.

This sounds awful and can be quite bad when not done right. Ferrell and McKay however are pros and they find so many laughs in this sketch movie formula that you can forgive the lack of movie-ness in their movies. “The Other Guys” earns so many big laughs that I forgot about whether there was a story progressing behind it all.

As a movie it's a bit of a disaster but as sketches riffing on the classic Hollywood buddy cop genre, “The Other Guys” is hilarious. Don't ask for anything more than the laughs and you will be just fine.

Movie Review: The Other Side of the Wind

The Other Side of the Wind (2018) 

Directed by Orson Welles 

Written by Orson Welles 

Starring John Huston, Peter Bogdanovich, Oja Kodar, Susan Strasbourg 

Release Date November 2nd, 2018 

Published November 5th, 2018 

Orson Welles is an elusive figure in the film world. He was at once wholly present and missing in action. Welles’ long exile from Hollywood meant that though he worked consistently, his work was mostly ignored in the world of mainstream cinema. If you’re someone like me who lives in the Midwest and doesn’t have unending access to obscure European adaptations of Shakespeare, then there is a large swath of the Welles’ catalog missing from you. 

Naturally, as a film lover, I have seen and loved Welles’ Citizen Kane, the film that though it provides Welles’ legacy with an eternal life, it was a never ending burden to the man. Kane dominated Welles’ career, it created his reputation as a film savant but also demonstrated him as a filmmaker unconcerned by the desires of commercial film-making. He was an artist first and a temperamental one at that, meaning studios didn’t want to work with him. 

These facts inform the making of Welles’ final film, The Other Side of the Wind, a pompously titled art film that was never completed in his lifetime. Like Welles’ Don Quixote, The Other Side of the Wind was a tantalizing artifact of film history. Was it an unfinished masterpiece or some bloated attempt at a comeback by an over the hill blowhard angry at the industry that betrayed him? 

The new documentary They’ll Love Me When I’m Dead, streaming now on Netflix and directed by Morgan Neville, director of the hit Mr Rogers documentary, Won’t You Be My Neighbor, examines the making of The Other Side of the Wind and gives us, if not Mr. Welles, closure on this seemingly doomed movie. Or does it? Watching the They’ll Love Me When I’m Dead appears to lead you to a resigned and satisfied place with The Other Side of the Wind. 

Then you get to the end and find, or at least I found it this way, that Netflix has gone ahead and bankrolled Welles’ friends, including Peter Bogdanovich, and Welles’ family, to actually finish The Other Side of the Wind which completed principle photography in 1975 only to be taken from Welles by of all things, the fall of the Shah of Iran. Welles had been financed by members of the Iranian government and when the state fell in 1979, the movie was seized as an asset. 

It remained locked away until recently and now with the aid of Welles’ notes and those of his late cinematographer Gary Graver, the film was completed and is now available to stream on Netflix despite the fact that Welles and a majority of the cast and crew, including star John Huston and co-star Susan Strasbourg have passed away. The Other Side of the Wind is something akin to a ghost of a movie, thankfully not a zombie but an ethereal filmic being. 

They’ll Love Me When I’m Dead appeared to me to be the only way we would ever have closure on Welles’ final film. It was for me, because I didn’t bother to read anything about it before I sat to watch it, such a complete surprise that I could feel the documentary making the turn toward declaring itself the unofficial completion of The Other Side of the Wind. The documentary is about movie making and Welles is even in the documentary discussing how The Other Side of the Wind and the making of it, could easily be a documentary rather than a narrative feature. 

Actor Alan Cumming plays host to the documentary offering rye asides on the travails of making The Other Side of the Wind via the interviews with Welles’ remaining, living friends and collaborators. It is Cumming who appears to make the turn late in the documentary that seemed to me to indicate that the documentary was, itself, the final form of The Other Side of the Wind. I found this to be a lovely and fitting bit of fakery, well in line with Welles' famed F is For Fake, another odd documentary take on reality versus fiction. 

Imagine my surprise then, when the credits began to roll and suddenly Netflix was starting the next feature, The Other Side of the Wind in its completed form. I was shocked and amused and I remained so I could watch it as the two are components of the same remarkable film-making tale. The Other Side of the Wind suddenly existed outside of the documentary and the Welles’ we get to know in They’ll Love Me When I’m Dead would have loved my shocked reaction. 

As much as The Other Side of the Wind was a product of its lack of a budget and the limitations of those involved to remain available to the whim of Welles’ schedule, the experimental nature of the movie meant that it could be recut and re-imagined in a number of different ways. This includes adding or subtracting footage of Welles himself who appears to be making the first meta-textual film/documentary project of its kind. 

The Other Side of the Wind is the story of an aging and failing film director named Jake 'J.J' Hannaford, played by legendary film director John Huston. Hannaford is in the midst of completing his latest movie, a film of which we see throughout The Other Side of the Wind, as a movie within the movie. Hannaford is hoping that his producer will sell the movie to a film producer, modeled after the legendary Robert Evans. If that doesn't work, he needs to convince his young protege, Otterlake (Peter Bogdanovich), to loan him the money. 

Otterlake is successful in a way J.J never really was and this fact has strained their mentor/mentee, teacher and pupil, father and son, dynamic. Sure, J.J has all of the love and respect in the world for his work but next to none of the kind of success that Hollywood celebrates. Orson Welles claimed that this relationship was not modeled on his and Bogdanovich's friendship but that seems impossible to believe, even as Bogdanovich appears to humor him and push that narrative in interviews in the documentary. 

Cameras rolled on the set of The Other Side of the Wind at all times, even when a cut was called. There are characters in The Other Side of the Wind playing film students who’ve been invited to film the lead character’s 70th birthday party and Welles had the extras filming at all times, during and after takes just to make sure he had as much footage as possible to put into a final cut in whatever form that final cut might take. 

The documentary makes remarkable use of the footage especially as the actors playing students were encouraged to engage with Welles between takes and Welles indulged in a one sided conversation with the cameras regarding the nature of cinema, with an extra special focus on mistakes and how mistakes can make a scene seem even more real than even a documentary. 

It’s a remarkable insight into the man, even as it is a strong demonstration of his vast egotism. Welles was unquestionably a blowhard but he was never boring and he is wildly fascinating in They’ll Love Me When I am Dead, a figure of Falstaffian charisma. Like him or not, you can’t take your eyes off of Welles. They’ll Love Me When I’m Dead captures the man and the artist in endlessly fascinating ways. 

I don’t have as much to say about the quality of The Other Side of the Wind. It’s a bloviating, free-flowing art piece that both resembles and appears to satirize the French New Wave and the indie darlings of Hollywood’s post-studio era, many of whom play themselves in cameos including Dennis Hopper, Henry Jaglom and Paul Mazursky. Welles appears to be placing himself above the young directors and among them, both peer and influencer, sage critic and desperate wannabe. 

The Other Side of the Wind couldn’t be further from the patient, deliberate and gorgeous confines of Citizen Kane. The Other Side of the Wind is pure chaos where the story appears almost non-existent amid the free flowing experiment that is being captured and wrangled by the editing team like an unbroken colt. The film appears to be fighting the idea of being formed into something like a mainstream feature film and is finally corralled only when Bogdanovich and Huston manage to get Welles to pay attention to them for just a moment. 

All of this is to say that I recommend you watch both the documentary, They'll Love Me When I'm Dead and the final cut of the movie, The Other Side of the Wind, back to back for the best experience. That’s a big commitment, nearly four hours, but if you are a crazy film nerd like me, it’s an experience you don’t want to pass up on. Both They’ll Love Me When I’m Dead and The Other Side of the Wind are streaming now, back to back, on Netflix.