LIFE ITSELF: The Film Babble Blog Review

LIFE ITSELF (Dir. Steve James, 2014)

Roger Ebert, arguably the most famous movie critic ever, gets his own movie in the form of LIFE ITSELF, Steve James� affectionate documentary adaptation of the late Chicago critic�s 2011 memoir, now playing at an indie art house near you (it�s also available on Demand and on iTunes).

James began filming the biodoc a few months before Ebert succumbed to cancer in 2013, so we get to spend some quality time with the great writer who didn�t let thyroid cancer taking his voice and his lower jaw stop him from turning out scores of film reviews, blog posts, and assorted other articles up until his death.

With the help of hundreds of archival photographs, tons of television clips, interviews with colleagues, and the audio of impressionist and voicematch impressionist Steven Stanton providing narration, James takes us through Ebert�s humble beginnings covering sports for his high school paper to his rise as a Pulitzer Prize winning film critic for the Chicago Sun-Times to his fame as a television personality who famously bickered with Chicago Tribune critic Gene Siskel on several popular TV programs from 1975-1999 (Opening Soon�At a Theater Near You, Sneak Previews, At the Movies, etc.).

After Ebert quit drinking in 1979, at an AA meeting he met his future wife Chaz, without a doubt the great woman behind the great man. Through their communication consisting often of just gestures, we get a good sense of their loving relationship. Mrs. Ebert�s assisting her husband in getting to the movies, sometimes in defiance of doctor�s orders, is adorable, and their ability to joke together (Ebert through hand-written notes and his laptop) through his struggles with sickness makes for some of the most touching moments I�ve seen on the big screen this year.

The most entertaining segments of this documentary unsurprisingly deal with Ebert�s caustic clashes with Siskel through the years. Richard Corliss of Time magazine said their show could be seen as �a sitcom about two guys who lived in a movie theater,� a testament to their Old Couple appeal.

Classic clips of the duo arguing over various movies through the years, plus hilarious outtake footage from the filming of commercial promos, illustrate how these two men�s hatred gradually grew into respect and love before Siskel died after battling a brain tumor in 1999.

Then there�s the films themselves. Key quotes from Ebert�s reviews of such milestone movies as BONNIE AND CLYDE, CRIES AND WHISPERS, and THE TREE OF LIFE are highlighted, but it�s the mention of his 1967 notice of a small independent film, WHO'S THAT KNOCKING AT MY DOOR, made by a first-time filmmaker from Queens, N.Y., who Ebert predicted would in ten years be �the American Fellini,� that most got to me.

That filmmaker was Martin Scorsese, who executive produced LIFE ITSELF and appears here as an interview subject. Seeing Scorsese get choked up about Ebert had me, well, a bit choked up, and its seriously affecting to see the master filmmaker bristle at the critic�s harsh criticism of THE COLOR OF MONEY in 1986.

Now, I grew up on Ebert�s writing, and his TV appearances, so this material often got me very emotional. It�s difficult to watch the man fading in his final days, his mouth nothing more than a hanging flap of skin, but his wit and inspirational spirit ease the pain and sadness considerably.

James, whose seminal 1994 basketball documentary HOOP DREAMS Ebert was a huge supporter of, has constructed a vital glowing portrait. Full of warmth and humanity, LIFE ITSELF is an extraordinary and essential biodoc about a man whose love of movies influenced many movie-goers, including me, to seek out a lifetime of meaningful cinema.

Ebert says at one point in this film, �Look at a movie that a lot of people love, and you will find something profound.� LIFE ITSELF will undoubtedly be loved by a lot of people, but very few will have to look very deeply to find its profundity - it can be felt in nearly every frame.

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Clint Eastwood's JERSEY BOYS Has More Clich�s Than It Does Classic Songs

Opening today at a multiplex near you...



JERSEY BOYS (Dir. Clint Eastwood, 2014)

Jake Kasdan's 2007 spoof WALK HARD was supposed to have killed off all those cheesy music biopic tropes, but, dammit, here there all are again in full force in Clint Eastwood's new Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons film, JERSEY BOYS, based on the hit Tony winning Broadway musical.



There's also that tale of
how Frankie Valli, Tommy DeVito, Bob Gaudio, and Nick Massi came together from humble beginnings to become one of the biggest selling bands of the 20th century is told to us by each of the quartet, one by one, directly to the camera, in a manner that recalls Scorsese (from GOODFELLAS to WOLF OF WALL STREET), just nowhere as stylish.

John Lloyd Young, who won a Tony for the part on Broadway, portrays front man Frankie Valli, a singer whose falsetto can make a mafioso cry. Christopher Walken is that friendly made man that cries when hearing Young sing, and is here to lend the film its only instance of big name star power.

Vincent Piazza (Boardwalk Empire) plays slick fast-talking lead guitarist Tommy DeVito, who gets the band in heavy debt to the mob, while the other members, Bob Gaudio, and Nick Massi (Erich Bergen and Michael Lomenda, who played the roles on the original show's first national tour) barely register, even when it's their turns to narrate.

The screenplay by Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice (based on their Broadway book) does a poor job of putting the Four Seasons into the context of the times. The narrative starts in the mid-'50s, but by the time the band has a bunch of hits to its name, we're not sure when many scenes are supposed to take place. 

There's nothing to tell us that Valli's solo hit �Can't Take My Eyes Off You,� which they, of course, make a big production number out of, was recorded and released in 1967, the Summer of Love. No mention of the Beatles, or hippies, or Vietnam, or who the President was, or whatever.

The fashions simply go from Mad Men-era duds into '70s Disco-era threads, with no reference to anything else going in the world outside of the Four Seasons bubble.

The well stocked soundtrack, chocked full of the band's hit songs such as �Big Girls Don't Cry,� �Sherry,� and �Rag Doll� (very convincingly sung by Young) keep the film bopping along, but the overwhelming amount of clich�s in this by-the-numbers biopic outnumbers even the wealth of classic tracks that are crammed into its bloated 134 minute running time.

And for a film that comes on like a modeled mixture of THAT THING YOU DO and GOODFELLAS, it sure has a clunky flow.

But beyond all the thick Italian-American accents, depictions of street crime, and fourth wall breakage, JERSEY BOYS has a legit connection to Scorsese's 1990 gangster classic. Joe Pesci was a friend to the guys, especially DeVito, and is played here by Joey Russo, who does a passable impersonation. They really didn't have to have him say �Funny, how?� as if to show us the origin of his classic scene in GOODFELLAS though. They really didn't.

This just calls attention to the fact that, try as he might, Eastwood just doesn't have the Scorsesean swagger needed to make this material anything special above the music biopic average. 

Eastwood's bland approach here - it's like he's never seen WALK THE LINE, RAY, THE BUDDY HOLLY STORY, COAL MINER'S DAUGHTER, LA BAMBA, GREAT BALLS OF FIRE!, THE DOORS, et al (Hell, it's like he's never even watched his own Charlie Parker biopic BIRD!) - just renders this into another TV movie that will be forever rerun on VH1 Classic.

Eastwood is far from one of my favorite directors, but he's shown a solid sense of storytelling in many of his directorial efforts. But JERSEY BOYS is a story that's been told so many times before that it would take something more inspired than just a close approximation of the music, and a rote run-through of the artists' rise and fall, to make it really sing.

Whether its the recycled chart toppers, or the regurgitated plot points, there's not a single original note that this mediocre musical plays.

More later...