GHOSTRIDER: SPIRIT OF VENGEANCE
(M) (86 min) Directed by Mark Neveldine, Brian Taylor. Starring Nicolas Cage, Ciaran Hinds, Idris Elba, Violante Placido. the lead? For every Leaving Las Vegas, Moonstruck and Adaptation, there’s been a dozen flat-out lousy films. But, you know what, Cage has been OK in all of them. Give him the most risible dialogue, the flimsiest of motivations, a hairpiece that looks like a fruitbat is trying to conceive with his head, and set him in motion within a film so bad the audience will be laughing out loud long before the first act has clattered off the spool, and Cage will still be up there, acting like it matters. Even the hacks deserve everything he can give them. I doubt there’s ever been another big-name actor who has turned up in so many ludicrously awful films. But I’ll still dutifully go and watch Cage work. It’s my job, but also, I’m growing fond of the big lug.
Not that this should be construed as a recommendation that you see Ghostrider: Spirit of Vengeance, with its demons, dark curses and pseudo-biblical babble. Cage spends most of the film riding a motorcycle, with his head on fire. The film, from the directors of Crank, is laughably bad rubbish, slackly paced and oddly tedious. Cage, as always, is great in it.
IN 1957, Marilyn Monroe, who was then the most famous woman in the world, travelled to England to work on a film with Laurence Olivier. The two of them clashed famously. Monroe brought with her an entourage of managers, facilitators, her personal acting coach – Paula Strasberg, who was a famed teacher of method acting – and playwright Arthur Miller, who was her brand-new third husband.
Olivier was a bully, used to having things his own way, terrified of failure and completely unprepared for Monroe’s ways. She was insecure, often late to set, possibly already addicted to a cocktail of sleeping pills and antidepressants. And yet, she could still wrap Olivier, and any other man in the room, around her finger with a glance. Beneath the fragility was a rare strength, and genuine intelligence. But, Monroe was hurt by Olivier, and hurt even more when Miller abruptly returned to New York. And so into the picture blunders young Colin Clark, son of a lord and a ladies’ man in the making, but still a callow and naive enough youth to provide a trusted shoulder to cry on for poor lost Marilyn.
That, anyway, is the story, lifted directly from the diaries of
Dougray Scott as playwright Arthur Miller and Michelle Williams as Marilyn Monroe in the enjoyable My Week Clark, which, as more than one writer has already pointed out, were not published until 2000, when anyone who could have contradicted Clark’s story was long dead. So did it happen as Clark says? Who cares. There’s not much in the way of history in My Week With Marilyn anyway. This isn’t a film of insights or unexpected complexity. Nor does Adrian Hodges’ script really try to do much except lay out the story as Clark says it happened. And first-time feature maker Simon Curtis doesn’t do much either, except get out of the way and let the actors do their stuff within a tolerably brisk edit.
So perhaps the real creative force here isn’t Curtis, or Hodges, but producer Harvey Weinstein. It was Weinstein who found the money, brought Michelle Williams to the table and had the clout to then assemble the rest of this extraordinary cast. Williams is luminous as Monroe, but around her Judi Dench, Kenneth Branagh, Dougray Scott, and Emma Watson are equally impressive with their limited screen time and lesser roles. The only actor here who didn’t grab me was Eddie Redmayne. He didn’t seem to me charismatic or believable enough to play the allegedly innocent Colin. But, perhaps, that’s the point. In a film full of people who have already been compromised and corrupted, at least Colin was only starting his journey. Go and see My Week With Marilyn. It’s a good yarn, adequately told, but quite beautifully performed.
Also this week: The new Pedro Almodovar film The Skin I Live In, is a dark one by Almodovar’s standards, but well worth seeing. Tickets and programmes for the World Cinema Showcase are out this week, and it looks like a good lineup. And The French Film Festival continues at The Paramount. There’s a few gems. Go and have a look.